On Sunday, February 23, in the match of the 18th round of the Ukrainian championship, Kyiv “Dynamo” defeated Lviv “Karpaty” with a score of 2:0. The match took place in Kyiv at the “Dynamo” stadium named after Valeriy Lobanovskyi. Please find below the post-match press conference of the head coach of the visiting team, Vladyslav Lupashko.
— The match turned out to be interesting first of all. We tried to put pressure on “Dynamo”, to press them. We had many opportunities in the sense that Dynamo players lost the ball after such pressure from us. But it is clear that in the “Dynamo” squad there are high-level players who managed to break away from our pressure.
But, be that as it may, I liked our desire to play boldly against “Dynamo” away. We made difficult decisions, we came out from under the opponent’s pressure with the help of constructive play, and not with the help of some primitive football.
— How do you assess the first official match of the team after the training camp?
— Overall, good. But we trained on synthetic turf for a week before the match, and the transition to natural grass has an effect, it is felt. However, even so, there was intensity in our game, the football today was indeed intense, and we managed to maintain that intensity.
— It seemed that in the first half “Karpaty” did not play intensively. Or was that your plan for the game?
— We told the guys that the first minutes would be very difficult because this transition to natural grass would have an effect. But there was no such plan. Our plan was to play as the first number. However, a lot also depends on the opponent: the Dynamo players forced us to “sit” in defense.
But we were intense, we forced “Dynamo” to play back, and we put pressure on the opponent's team even in their penalty area. There were moments of transitions from defense to attack too, but some guys missed certain segments of the preseason training, not all our footballers are currently in optimal condition. However, the fact that we endured the entire match is indicative — we are in good physical shape.
Post-match press conference of the head coach of “Dynamo” Oleksandr Shovkovskyi >>>
Oleksandr POPOV from the stadium “Dynamo” named after Valeriy Lobanovskyi