Former player of the Ukrainian national team Ivan Getsko shared his expectations for the 1/8 final match of the Ukrainian Cup between Dynamo and Shakhtar:
— I hope there will be no post-match penalty shootout today. After all, there’s a lot of injustice in this football lottery, and the team that dominated in regular time does not always emerge victorious.
— So whom do you favor?
— Currently, I evaluate the opponents' chances as 50−50. I’m confident that there will definitely be goals scored, and they will be the highlight of this grand derby.
— In your opinion, will Kyiv club manager Oleksandr Shovkovskiy entrust Andriy Yarmolenko with the role of forward, as it was in the 10th round UPL match against Kryvbas?
— Why not? Yarmolenko did well in his duties, scored a goal, and skillfully combined with his teammates. The only question is how he’ll fare against Shakhtar’s stoppers, who are somewhat stronger than their Kryvbas counterparts.
— It seems that Dynamo and Shakhtar have already recovered from their recent failures in the Conference League.
— I was confident that Shakhtar would have no problems with Kudrivka, but Kryvbas was disappointing. I thought their coach Patrick van Leeuwen would try to surprise the Dynamo players, which would affect the result.
However, the guests were helpless and should be satisfied with conceding only four goals. Dynamo seems to have 'woken up', although today there will be an opportunity to see if it was just my imagination.
Andriy Pysarenko