The midfielder of Kyiv’s «Dynamo U-19» Roman Salenko shared his impressions of yesterday’s away match in the youth championship against Lviv’s «Rukh» (2:1), in which he was the author of the winning goal.
Roman Salenko— It seemed that in the first half we went out not focused enough, but in the second half, after the break, we played better. During the pause, many guys left for the national teams, some trained with the first team, while others stayed with the U-19 team.
— Everyone had different loads; was there a sense of imbalance during the game?
— Of course, I, for example, just returned and immediately the next day got on the bus and headed to the game, so it was a bit tough. But we needed to earn points; a win is a win, I think the team understood this despite the traveling and different loads in the national teams. Personally, I felt fine; regarding the load, everything was good.
— In the first round, you defeated «Rukh» with a score of 10:0, this time the victory was harder to achieve?
— I think the opponent drew conclusions from that defeat and took that lesson into account. Today they not only wanted to avoid losing but also to win and take points from us. Perhaps they received motivation because now in the U-19 championship, the competition is so fierce that anything can happen. Undoubtedly, they approached this game differently than in our previous match. The opponent was very serious about it; our head coach also mentioned that the guys were «charged».
— What prevented you from scoring in the first half? Was the quality of the pitch lacking?
— Of course, when I played with the national team on the best natural pitches where the ball «glided», after returning I had one training session on artificial turf, and then immediately played on this pitch… The ball «caught» and didn’t move as quickly during passes. But it seems that in the second half everyone got used to it. Once everyone understood how the ball bounced, they began to control it better.
— Both goals our team scored came after interceptions in the midfield; how did you manage to capitalize on the opponent's mistakes?
— It seems to me that all modern football is focused on interceptions because when the opponent doesn’t manage to take positions and get back in defense, big free spaces are created. You can easily build your counterattacks on that, which we did.
— Comment on the attack that led to your winning goal.
— I really wanted to score, so it's nice that I managed to do it, and my goal turned out to be the winning one. If I hadn’t scored, the score would have been 1:1, so it’s twice as nice. (Smiles).
Were you nervous after «Rukh» reduced the deficit? I think in such a score, you always feel uneasy regardless of the opponent because anything can happen in football.
