On Saturday, August 16, in the match of the 3rd round of the Ukrainian championship, Kyiv’s “Dynamo” defeated “Epicenter” from Kamianets-Podilskyi with a score of 4:1. The match took place in Ternopil at the R. Shukhevych Central City Stadium. Here is the post-match press conference of the nominal home team’s head coach Sergei Nagornyak.
Sergei Nagornyak. Photo — A. Popov— The negative point is that we conceded four goals. The positive point is that we scored our first goal in the UPL. And it was a decent goal. Moreover, we had another scoring opportunity.
Overall, a well-deserved victory for “Dynamo”. We are not yet able to withstand the intensity that exists in the UPL. But this is something that can be improved. For some of our players, today was their first match in the UPL.
“Dynamo” showed us their class and what we need to work on.
— “Dynamo” hasn’t had so much space in front in recent years. Why did this happen?
— I agree that this happened in the first half. The guys didn’t figure out how the Dynamo players were making runs and began to retreat towards the goal. They reacted very poorly to the opponents’ runs. Then we rearranged a bit. What’s the point of sitting in defense when so many fans came — we wanted to give them emotions.
This is a lesson for me first and foremost. And it’s only my fault. On the other hand, what now: in the next match do we close up, dig in, and defend? I don’t want to play that kind of football: it’s better to concede four goals but gain experience.
This is a lesson for us, and especially for me. A lesson from which, I hope, I’ll draw good conclusions.
Post-match press conference of “Dynamo” head coach Alexander Shovkovsky.
Alexander POPOV from Ternopil
