Dynamo U-19 forward Matviy Ponomarenko shared his impressions of the away victory over Shakhtar Donetsk U-19 (3:2) in the 11th round of the youth championship, where he scored a brace.
Matviy Ponomarenko— Amazing emotions! Everyone was focused on the game. I am not the only hero of the match, the whole team is heroic, as it wasn’t just me playing, but the entire team. Everyone is very pleased that we’ve come closer to Shakhtar in the standings. Tomorrow we will rest and prepare for the upcoming games. This was just one game, and there is still a whole championship ahead, the second round.
— What went wrong after 2:0? Why did the opponent come back?
— After scoring the second goal, we thought the job was done. But in such matches, you can’t relax. A free-kick came out of nowhere. They scored against us, chaos started, and Shakhtar, driven by emotions, advanced and leveled the score. It’s good that the guys quickly gathered themselves, left everything behind, and moved forward. We didn’t settle for a draw; we aimed to win. And the opponents, having leveled the score, sat back, thinking the game was over. We have a different mentality; we always strive to win. At 2:2, we had nothing to lose, we advanced and scored a goal. I believe we deserved the win.
— You saw the third goal from the bench. What was happening at that moment?
— To be honest, I haven’t seen goals like that before. Today’s weather conditions helped us; the wind carried the ball into the net. Of course, he’s a great guy for deciding to shoot or cross — I don’t know what he intended, but the main thing is the ball ended up in the goal, bringing us victory. We are very happy that this crazy goal was scored because before that we had scored what I consider a legitimate goal, which wasn’t counted. Maybe it’s karma.
— You’ve scored many braces in your career, but it’s especially satisfying to score in a «classic»...
— Of course, I want to score. Especially since I haven’t been very successful against Shakhtar in U-19, only in the academy. Hence, I was very motivated for this game. It felt like déjà vu — back in the academy, in U-16, my uncle’s birthday was the day before the game. I scored a beautiful goal then, and this time I remembered it and was aiming for a goal. It turned out I scored two. After scoring for the national team, I gifted goals to my girlfriend and mom for their birthdays. It’s a great trend, and I’ll try to keep it going.
