Next Thursday, August 28, Kyiv “Dynamo” will play the return match of the playoff round of the Europa League qualification against the Israeli “Maccabi” (Tel Aviv) in Lublin. The day before the game, a pre-match press conference was held for the head coach of the Ukrainian team, Alexander Shovkovskiy, in the conference hall of the “Arena Lublin” stadium, which will host this match.
Alexander Shovkovskiy. Photo by A. Popov— After the first match against “Maccabi,” both the team and you personally faced criticism and “hate.” Given this, in what psychological state is the team approaching the return match?
— Certainly, the criticism directed at the team affects everyone, and we definitely deserve it. We played the first half against “Maccabi” with a score of 1:1, had a plan for the second half, but a red card occurred that affected both our actions and the result.
Yes, turning around a two-goal deficit is possible. There are no questions about that. Sometimes there are more difficult situations. What do we need to achieve this? First of all, desire, understanding, and we need fortune on our side, for her to turn back to us. But we have to earn that with our actions on the field. We have worked on it, and have discussed it.
— Although this is not the subject of the match, still: there was a lot of information about a conflict between you and Andriy Yarmolenko during training. Could you clarify this situation to put all the dots on the "i"?
— The team has been in training camp for almost two months now. And events always happen within the team. But for it to receive such attention and for catastrophic conclusions to be drawn—this is beyond comprehension.
If everything happened as portrayed, then I think you wouldn’t have seen Andriy in the starting lineup for the next match. We just smiled at it all. And it changed nothing: we still have to focus on the task tomorrow and do everything in our power to achieve it.
— Is everyone ready for tomorrow’s match?
— Unfortunately, we will not have Torres and Vanat. We cannot count on them tomorrow.
— 17 years ago, “Dynamo” defeated Moscow’s “Spartak” and reached the group stage of the Champions League. Perhaps, to boost motivation, it makes sense to let the team watch that match?
— As they say, what is too much is unhealthy. We have analyzed many of our matches, many game moments where we could have performed better, where we need to strengthen our actions. We also analyzed the good moments in our performance. I think this is sufficient. Those who follow the history of “Dynamo” can watch some matches from the past on their own, but it definitely does not make sense to do this as a team.
— You had a week to prepare for this match and analyze the first encounter with “Maccabi.” What conclusions did you draw regarding the defeat to the opponent: what was the balance between certain miscalculations, the players’ actions, and the impact of the red card in your team?
— The answer can be this: we drew conclusions. I will not tell you specifically what we focused on during our preparation for tomorrow’s match—that would probably be inappropriate. Yes, we have done certain work, and I hope it will bring results. It just won’t be easy—that’s for sure. We understand this well. But we will do everything in our power to leave the field tomorrow with our heads held high.
— I cannot refrain from asking you to comment on the strengthening of the Dynamo coaching staff with the Polish specialist Maciej Kendzereк.
— We have been communicating with him for a long time and met several times in Poland when our team was here. We discussed possible cooperation, relationships in the coaching staff, and his areas of work—this includes analytics, set pieces, and the functions of the assistant head coach. Maciej will also help me in solving the tasks facing the team. His experience speaks for itself. We gladly welcomed him to our team, to our family.
Pre-match press conference of Andriy Yarmolenko.
Alexander POPOV from Lublin
