Oleksandr Shovkovskyi: “The penalties were taken well, but this is how it turned out”

The head coach of Kyiv’s Dynamo, Oleksandr Shovkovskyi, commented on the broadcast of the final of the Ukrainian Cup against “Shakhtar”.

Oleksandr Shovkovskyi (photo: Oksana Vasyliieva)

— If we talk about the game, it was, in principle, equal. I think the fans enjoyed it. We did not achieve the desired Cup in the penalty shootout, but that’s how it goes. I only thanked the players for their attitude. We will move on, it is very important for us to recover before the match of the Ukrainian championship against “Chornomorets”.

Post-match penalties are a lottery. But how was it decided who would go first?

— We had some issues. Some players said they couldn’t even… They lacked strength. They decided the order themselves. In principle, they took them well, but this is how it turned out.

You approached Karavaev after the game...

— He did his job, but... We prepared, studied, but nerves played a cruel joke on us.

Couldn’t it have been avoided to go to penalties?

— In the end, Denys Popov got injured and asked for a replacement. We already saw that everything was heading towards a shootout. It was important to finish without mistakes. Because the mistake we made, allowing a counterattack in the second half when we conceded, played a very important role.