Former footballer of Donetsk "Shakhtar" Serhiy Yashchenko shared his impressions of the game of his former team against Dortmund’s "Borussia" (1:3) in yesterday's match of the 8th round of the main stage of the Champions League:
Serhiy Yashchenko— I expected more from the "miners". It seemed that the confident victory last week over the French "Brest" gave grounds to hope that Marinko Puzic’s team would be in form and could challenge "Borussia". However, in Dortmund, I did not see what the Donetsk team could do to spoil the hosts’ mood. Their actions were fragmented, everyone was playing their "part", again lacking the final pass, although in the approaches to the penalty area, the guests sometimes combined well. But the main point is that "Borussia" was superior in speed of decision-making on the football field, in diversity. And it is again unclear what Bondar and Matviyenko were playing at in the center of defense; their performance clearly does not meet the level of the Champions League.
Of course, if one wishes, Shakhtar's failure to reach the next round can be justified by the fact that they constantly had to play away, but the facts are stubborn things. The current "Shakhtar" lacked stability even in one match, except for the confrontation with "Brest". Calling the "miners'" performance a failure in the current Champions League would be an exaggeration; for me, it is more suitable to call it unsuccessful.
