Goalkeeper of Bayer Oleksandr Petrenko, who previously was in the structure of Kyiv’s Dynamo, talked about the Dynamo chapter of his biography.
— I spent about two years at Shakhtar, maybe a bit more. Then I decided to open something new for myself. Dynamo invited me, and I decided to move. Yes, they are two competitors, but at that time I was looking to play more.
Moreover, Shakhtar got another goalkeeper from Odesa. I found myself under the threat of playing less. And at Dynamo, they promised me I would be in the main lineup. Probably, that was the key factor for me.
— Did the Shakhtar academy try to keep you from moving to Dynamo?
— Yes, they tried. This lasted for about a month and a half. We were communicating simultaneously with both Shakhtar and Dynamo. But in the end, I decided to move. It was in the summer of 2021.
— Which well-known coaches have you managed to work with in the academies of Ukrainian giants?
— At Dynamo, our team’s head coach was Yuriy Dmytrulin, and the goalkeeping coach was Volodymyr Ikonnikov.
— What can you say about Dmytrulin — the legend of the Kyiv club?
— A very cool coach. And as a person, he is very good, and as a specialist—he has extensive experience, he has much to tell and teach.
— Were the Shakhtar and Dynamo academies different in terms of everyday life and infrastructure?
— Everything was top-notch—both at Dynamo and at Shakhtar. I liked everything. Despite the fact that Shakhtar was and remains not at home. Maybe in Donetsk they had it no worse, but I believe they found a very good alternative in Shchaslyve.
Andriy Kaplun