I came to my home
Thursday, September 12, 2019
|
Yevhen Konoplyanka answered questions from reporters and fans at the presentation as a Shakhtar player
- Why did you pick number 15?
- Since I came on the last day of the transfer window, there were not so many options left. I took the ‘smallest’ number. Probably the next one was 73 and so on. For me, the number is not particularly important. If they had said that they had number 10 available ... I joked with Moraes in the national team in this regard. I told him that for me the most important thing is playing and scoring.
- Your first coach Yurii Kevlich said that representatives of Shakhtar came to you to Kropyvnytskyi-based Olimpik. When Willian was moving to Chelsea, Rinat Akhmetov said that there were two options for this role - Taison from Metalist and Konoplyanka from Dnipro. Tell us, please, whether Shakhtar showed any interest in you before the summer of 2019?
- Yes, they did. A year and a half ago, we got in touch with Sergei Palkin and discussed my future. That’s just a routine issue. He asked if I wanted it, but something didn’t work out. Maybe we deliberately postponed it until the year 2019 for the transfer to happen? Shakhtar were actually previously interested in me. Why I didn’t opt for it back then will remain between them and me.
- Who do you communicate with the most at Shakhtar? Perhaps, you made friends with some of the Brazilians?
- In fact, there’s been no adaptation at all. I came to my home. Moraes, Taison, and Marlos introduced me to all the Brazilians. They are all very kind and open people, they speak Portuguese, some of them also speak English, I’m also trying to remember my Spanish. And the Ukrainians are my family. We have really warm relationships with everyone, so I can’t single out anyone.
- Yevhen, FIFA nominated three footballers for the Best Player Award: Ronaldo, Messi, and van Dijk. Who will be the winner, according to you?
- Am I a judge? Will the things I say be a verdict? I really like those three players. Probably, I would like van Dijk to win. Messi and Ronaldo are nominated each year. It's hard to make it to the top three. And van Dijk did it because he had a great season. No one has beaten him over the whole season - who else can boast that?
- What goals do you set for yourself at Shakhtar?
- To win the Ukrainian League title and the Super Cup. To advance from the Champions League group and to go as far as possible in the knockout phase. If I say that I want to win the Champions League, I won’t be lying either. But how realistic that is, we will see.
- Did you have any offers from other clubs? When choosing Shakhtar, were you driven by the national team interests? Andriy Shevchenko actually announced your move - he was the first to hint about that.
- For three months I had been negotiating with many clubs. I don’t want to name them. I’ve made my choice. Shakhtar wanted me more than the others did, and I got really interested in that. As for Andriy Shevchenko - I was often in touch with him and let him know that, most likely, I would end up at Shakhtar.
- Was his opinion important?
- When we discussed various transfers, he never reacted negatively to any club, he supported me in any case. And when he knew everything officially, he sincerely congratulated me, wished me luck and said that this was a great choice.
- Soon, you will meet with Zinchenko and Malynovskyi in the Champions League. Did the three of you bet on those to make it from the group?
- Nope. We can’t bet as we are not in the street betting a Pepsi on it. We are professionals and take it as seriously as possible. On the football field, we can only wish each other good luck.
- Are you hoping to make it from the Champions League group?
- The guy just asked me about my goals, and I said that this is the minimum that we can and should do – advancing from the Champions League group.
- Can you rediscover your best form by the match against Manchester City?
- Every day, in training, I feel increasingly better fitness wise. In terms of technique, as I said before, everything remains at the same level. It’s necessary to improve my fitness – and that’ll be my top form. I hope to approach City in the best form, but let's start with Zorya as that’s an equally important match. It won’t be easy, so we’ll start to gain form from it.
- Have you found a place to live?
- This interests me less. The major thing is to look for the interplay with your teammates. Apartments will always be on offer, I’ll find one.
- You are turning 30 soon. Have you reached all your goals?
- If I didn’t have a goal, I would be somewhere in China now in order to make a living. But I have goals and ambitions. I feel good physically, I can surely play to high standards for at least three years. I hope so. I haven’t won the Ukrainian League title, the Super Cup and so on, so I have enough goals.
- Do you look forward to the game against Dnipro-1? Will it be more uncompromising than the one against Zorya or other opponents?
- No, I don’t. That’s a regular club, we just need to earn points in the encounter with them. I don’t look at who I play. Of course, had it been Dnipro plus half of the team, as before, it would’ve been important. But it’s always nice to return to your home city and stadium. Emotions will be sky-high, but the goal is the same - to claim three points.
- Who will enjoy more support - you personally or Dnipro-1?
- I’m also curious about that. We'll see. But anyway, Dnipro is my home city. And I feel close to the fans.
- Could you compare the training sessions by Juande Ramos and Luis Castro?
- I haven’t actually had a single training under Castro yet, I only played against Kolos. He’s not here at the moment. I am waiting for him to return, and then I will be able to answer this question. Still, I think the methods of Castro and Ramos are slightly different.
- My son plays football. What about your life, was the role of your mom important when you started?
- Yes, of course. And not only my mother’s role - the role of the parents is very important. I always felt support from them. Maybe that's why I'm here right now. Do you know how many times I didn’t want to wake up at seven in the morning to catch a minibus and get to the pitch which is located in nearly another city? I spent an hour on that. In Kirovohrad, that’s like I was going to Moscow or somewhere else abroad. The role of mom and dad is important.
- You are a very positive person and love to joke. Who in the Ukraine team can match your humour quality?
- Yes, we have a really jolly team, you’ll never get bored with us. Every minute, someone cracks a joke. Zinchenko sometimes succeeds at that when he wants to. I can mention many guys.
- What do you know about Vitao’s career?
- I started learning about him when I was already sitting in Mr Palkin’s office. As we signed our deals on the same day. Just kidding. I know that he is from Brazil, and that’s it. I want you to pose the same question to Vitao: does he know where I came from? Let's check that!
- Since I came on the last day of the transfer window, there were not so many options left. I took the ‘smallest’ number. Probably the next one was 73 and so on. For me, the number is not particularly important. If they had said that they had number 10 available ... I joked with Moraes in the national team in this regard. I told him that for me the most important thing is playing and scoring.
- Your first coach Yurii Kevlich said that representatives of Shakhtar came to you to Kropyvnytskyi-based Olimpik. When Willian was moving to Chelsea, Rinat Akhmetov said that there were two options for this role - Taison from Metalist and Konoplyanka from Dnipro. Tell us, please, whether Shakhtar showed any interest in you before the summer of 2019?
- Yes, they did. A year and a half ago, we got in touch with Sergei Palkin and discussed my future. That’s just a routine issue. He asked if I wanted it, but something didn’t work out. Maybe we deliberately postponed it until the year 2019 for the transfer to happen? Shakhtar were actually previously interested in me. Why I didn’t opt for it back then will remain between them and me.
- Who do you communicate with the most at Shakhtar? Perhaps, you made friends with some of the Brazilians?
- In fact, there’s been no adaptation at all. I came to my home. Moraes, Taison, and Marlos introduced me to all the Brazilians. They are all very kind and open people, they speak Portuguese, some of them also speak English, I’m also trying to remember my Spanish. And the Ukrainians are my family. We have really warm relationships with everyone, so I can’t single out anyone.
- Yevhen, FIFA nominated three footballers for the Best Player Award: Ronaldo, Messi, and van Dijk. Who will be the winner, according to you?
- Am I a judge? Will the things I say be a verdict? I really like those three players. Probably, I would like van Dijk to win. Messi and Ronaldo are nominated each year. It's hard to make it to the top three. And van Dijk did it because he had a great season. No one has beaten him over the whole season - who else can boast that?
- What goals do you set for yourself at Shakhtar?
- To win the Ukrainian League title and the Super Cup. To advance from the Champions League group and to go as far as possible in the knockout phase. If I say that I want to win the Champions League, I won’t be lying either. But how realistic that is, we will see.
- Did you have any offers from other clubs? When choosing Shakhtar, were you driven by the national team interests? Andriy Shevchenko actually announced your move - he was the first to hint about that.
- For three months I had been negotiating with many clubs. I don’t want to name them. I’ve made my choice. Shakhtar wanted me more than the others did, and I got really interested in that. As for Andriy Shevchenko - I was often in touch with him and let him know that, most likely, I would end up at Shakhtar.
- Was his opinion important?
- When we discussed various transfers, he never reacted negatively to any club, he supported me in any case. And when he knew everything officially, he sincerely congratulated me, wished me luck and said that this was a great choice.
- Soon, you will meet with Zinchenko and Malynovskyi in the Champions League. Did the three of you bet on those to make it from the group?
- Nope. We can’t bet as we are not in the street betting a Pepsi on it. We are professionals and take it as seriously as possible. On the football field, we can only wish each other good luck.
- Are you hoping to make it from the Champions League group?
- The guy just asked me about my goals, and I said that this is the minimum that we can and should do – advancing from the Champions League group.
- Can you rediscover your best form by the match against Manchester City?
- Every day, in training, I feel increasingly better fitness wise. In terms of technique, as I said before, everything remains at the same level. It’s necessary to improve my fitness – and that’ll be my top form. I hope to approach City in the best form, but let's start with Zorya as that’s an equally important match. It won’t be easy, so we’ll start to gain form from it.
- Have you found a place to live?
- This interests me less. The major thing is to look for the interplay with your teammates. Apartments will always be on offer, I’ll find one.
- You are turning 30 soon. Have you reached all your goals?
- If I didn’t have a goal, I would be somewhere in China now in order to make a living. But I have goals and ambitions. I feel good physically, I can surely play to high standards for at least three years. I hope so. I haven’t won the Ukrainian League title, the Super Cup and so on, so I have enough goals.
- Do you look forward to the game against Dnipro-1? Will it be more uncompromising than the one against Zorya or other opponents?
- No, I don’t. That’s a regular club, we just need to earn points in the encounter with them. I don’t look at who I play. Of course, had it been Dnipro plus half of the team, as before, it would’ve been important. But it’s always nice to return to your home city and stadium. Emotions will be sky-high, but the goal is the same - to claim three points.
- Who will enjoy more support - you personally or Dnipro-1?
- I’m also curious about that. We'll see. But anyway, Dnipro is my home city. And I feel close to the fans.
- Could you compare the training sessions by Juande Ramos and Luis Castro?
- I haven’t actually had a single training under Castro yet, I only played against Kolos. He’s not here at the moment. I am waiting for him to return, and then I will be able to answer this question. Still, I think the methods of Castro and Ramos are slightly different.
- My son plays football. What about your life, was the role of your mom important when you started?
- Yes, of course. And not only my mother’s role - the role of the parents is very important. I always felt support from them. Maybe that's why I'm here right now. Do you know how many times I didn’t want to wake up at seven in the morning to catch a minibus and get to the pitch which is located in nearly another city? I spent an hour on that. In Kirovohrad, that’s like I was going to Moscow or somewhere else abroad. The role of mom and dad is important.
- You are a very positive person and love to joke. Who in the Ukraine team can match your humour quality?
- Yes, we have a really jolly team, you’ll never get bored with us. Every minute, someone cracks a joke. Zinchenko sometimes succeeds at that when he wants to. I can mention many guys.
- What do you know about Vitao’s career?
- I started learning about him when I was already sitting in Mr Palkin’s office. As we signed our deals on the same day. Just kidding. I know that he is from Brazil, and that’s it. I want you to pose the same question to Vitao: does he know where I came from? Let's check that!