Dynamo Kyiv captain Vitaliy Buyalskyi summed up the results of the match against Cherkasy LNZ (0:1) in the 12th round of the Ukrainian Championship.
— It’s hard to comment when the team loses. Probably, we didn’t fully recover because we only had one full training session yesterday. Therefore, I think that to some extent today’s match result was inevitable.
— What do you think is Dynamo’s problem in positional attacks today? It was impossible to create chances…
— That’s because LNZ had been preparing for our game for quite some time. I’m sure they analyzed every player and played well in defense. It was apparent that we couldn’t create chances and score a goal. If we don’t score, it’s hard to win.
— Can it be said that at the end of the first half, Dynamo slightly lost concentration and conceded an unnecessary goal?
— I can’t say we lost concentration. When you play against teams like LNZ, who defend well, you have to take risks and come up with something unconventional to score. We wanted to do it through the center but didn’t succeed. We couldn’t break the rules in time and conceded a goal.
It’s normal for a team that defends like that to launch counterattacks. That’s how it is in football because they win the ball, and they have two forwards who are more or less fresh. A pass immediately goes to them, and they break out.
— How would you comment on the episode with the unawarded penalty?
— I didn’t see it because I was taking a corner, so I don’t know. In principle, I’m no longer surprised they don’t award penalties.
— Did you talk to Yarmolenko? What happened to him?
— His calf muscle started to hurt.
— In the last round, Dynamo’s unbeaten streak ended at 42 matches. After the end of this streak, do you feel less pressure to continue it?
— There was no pressure, we just played well in defense, created our chances, and scored goals. Now, with many travels, we don’t have such a training cycle, and sometimes, maybe, we lack freshness or energy, it’s hard to understand what’s missing. When the team wins, everything seems fine. But when the team loses, you start looking everywhere for the problem.
— Currently, the situation in the standings isn’t the best for Dynamo. Are you still not looking at the points table or starting to pay attention?
— I don’t look at the standings at all. It’s just the first round. Believe me, after the winter camps, everything can turn upside down. You’ve seen it many times.
— Do the filled stands according to the new quota give you strength?
— It’s good that fans come. We like playing with fans; there is support. When we played in Turkey in the Conference League, the stadium was full there.
— Next week, there will be a break for international matches. How will the club prepare for the upcoming matches? Will there be a sparring?
— There will be a few days off, and the coaching staff will build the training process and probably plan a sparring.
— The match against Zrinjski ended with a confident victory, and you managed to score six goals. Can you tell us a bit about this match?
— As you saw, in the first minutes, Zrinjski created chances that could have led to us conceding a goal. Fortunately, they didn’t score. We converted our chance, and that immediately gives the team confidence and ease. It’s the same in the Ukrainian championship—when we play and someone scores against us, they play even better against us with positive emotions. And we, on the contrary, if we don’t score, start to get nervous, as it was at the end of the first half today. We wanted to create a moment and score a goal but didn’t succeed.
— Dynamo had quite a tough series of matches—Samsunspor, Kryvbas, two matches with Shakhtar, Zrinjski, and LNZ. It seems the team already ran out of emotions for this match.
— As I said, when the team wins, everything seems good and the team is great. But when the team loses, everyone looks for the problem—the players, coaches, journalists. So it’s hard for me to say what the primary problem is.