Valentin Rubchynskyi: 'If we had played better from the first rounds, we would now have a chance to fight for higher places'", '

— Valentyn, how do you assess today’s victory and the European Cup campaign as a whole?

— We failed the European Cup campaign, as we did not earn points in the first matches. I don’t know why that happened. Perhaps we lacked strength for both the Ukrainian Championship and the Europa League. Now we played two matches well, there is a result. I think if we had played better from the first rounds, we would now have a chance to fight for higher places.

— How much easier was it to get to these two matches in terms of logistics right from Turkey?

— Of course, it was easier, we sat on a plane for two hours and we were already here. And from Kyiv, we traveled by train, bus, and plane. Matches every three days, so it was really hard. We couldn’t fully recover. But we don’t want to make excuses, that’s our reality now. It’s good that we’re still playing.

— How is it for you to play matches at the beginning of January because of the new tournament format?

— We have prepared well for these matches, and now we are physically ready to continue the competition in the UPL. Now we will work more on our tactics to achieve the necessary result in the Ukrainian Championship.