I’m in the top team
Friday, May 8, 2020
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Shakhtar midfielder Oleksandr Pikhalyonok answered questions from fans on Instagram Live, talked about a full recovery from his injury and his desire to prove himself at the home club
- Did the quarantine period benefit you in terms of recovery?
- Yes, I have already recovered. I hope that full training will begin next week and that I’ll be able to work with the whole team. Individual sessions still cannot replace the general group, no matter what you do. Plus I really want to play a friendly match. I look forward to taking the field.
- In the absence of games, do you have an additional possibility to analyze some tactical things?
- Of course I do. There are practically no championships held at the moment. I think many players watch their previous games to analyze the tactical mistakes. But in general, every player wants the season to resume, because it’s tough without full training and games.
- How did you support yourself mentally after the injury?
- It was very difficult initially, especially the month I spent on crutches. I would like to thank my wife, my family, my parents, the grandfather, the grandmother who supported me. Without them, it would’ve been very difficult. And I’d love to thank the team too: it was very nice when I was in Barcelona after the operation and they put on T-shirts with some words addressed to me. The coaching staff, the club, the management - they all did a lot for me to recover. Now it all depends on me. I will wait for a chance to prove myself.
- What was your first player role? Why are you a midfielder now?
- Since childhood, I’ve been playing in midfield nearly all the time. In general, my first position was behind the striker, a more attacking midfielder. I performed that role at the Youth Sports School and at the Academy from U14 to U17. And when I joined the U19 team, Valerii Kryventsov began to field me more often in the holding area, where there are more balls and where you need to win and play them more frequently. He probably instilled the current role in me.
- With what teammates do you communicate more now?
- Stepanenko, Khocholava, Shevchenko, Bondar, Sikan ... I keep in touch with everyone from time to time.
- Has postponing the European Championship given you any extra motivation to win the competition at Shakhtar in order to increase your chance of winning a Ukraine cap?
- Of course, every footballer fancies to be called up to the national team. The injury was very serious, so let’s do it step by step. I will wait for my chance at Shakhtar in order to prove myself and gain a foothold in the senior team.
- You participated in the UEFA Youth League final back in 2015. What did you lack to win it?
- To be honest, I don’t know. We played well, and the score was tight – 2-3. We can say that I got out of luck. But Chelsea had an excellent roster - the strongest team we’ve ever encountered. I don’t think that we were much inferior. It just happens like that in the final: one team win, the other lose. It was really frustrating.
- Why don’t you have a profile on Wikipedia?
- This question shouldn’t be addressed to me! I’m not the one to create a page there! Well, basically, I could ask my wife ...
- What’s your best centre-midfield partner?
- Talking about the UEFA Youth League and the reserve team, I played with Beka Vachiberadze. Then, in the reserve team and at Mariupol, I played with Danylo Ihnatenko. He focuses more on defending, on ball winning. We understood each other perfectly well. I have made just few appearances for Shakhtar so far, but the players here are top-level, it’s handy to play with everyone and it’s hard to single anyone out.
- What football rule would you like to change if you had this opportunity?
- I think we don’t need to reinvent a bicycle and change something. There are people to deal with that. It’s necessary to improve VAR as it appears to be highly questionable. Overall, it’s OK, football got fairer, but the system needs to be improved. The offside situations when you’ve got just half of your foot or shoulder off ... I mean the match vs Atalanta, for instance, when Viktor Kovalenko scored a goal at 0-0. Such offside situations are wrong.
- As a child, you played five-a-side a lot. Does it now help you in adult football?
- To be honest, those are completely different sports. In senior football, the distances are different, with a bigger volume of work. My father played five-a-side and futsal. He played for various clubs, including futsal for Shakhtar. I will always be really grateful to my father - he instilled the love of sport in me and trained a lot with me. I was already at the Shakhtar Academy back then, but sometimes, after everything else, I went to play five-a-side - I really liked it!
- Is it true that in childhood you went outdoors and played keepie-uppie, and when it had dropped along the way, you came back and started it all over again?
- Yes, that’s true. I played keepie-uppie a lot, I also lifted and stopped the ball ... Again, my father taught me to do that. First I watched him do it, then I did it myself. I wanted to cover the longest distance possible while juggling the ball. But you don’t need to do it too much (four to five thousand times). Just because, as I can remember, I did it to the point when my eyes felt sore. Some fifteen hundred is quite enough to feel the ball.
- How difficult was it to make it to Shakhtar? This is often asked by the younger generation, as well as their parents. What would you recommend?
- I come from Donetsk, and always, since childhood, I’ve dreamed of playing for Shakhtar. I attended trials at the age of five - they didn’t enroll me because I was too small, they were going to enroll the boys of my age just the following year. I came there again two years later because my father had left to play in a different town. Finally, since age seven, I was moving step by step. Presently, I’m in the first team and, I guess, everything’s just beginning.
- While in quarantine, what did you do of the things that you hadn’t had enough time for previously?
- I started learning English. I didn’t have enough time for that in Mariupol, I started and gave it up because there were very long away trips. The shortest one lasted five hours. Matches took place every week. You arrive, just having recovered from another away game, and you must go somewhere else again. Even more so when we played on Wednesdays and Saturdays. And currently, I train three times a week in the evening with a tutor via Skype. I’ve made some progress, but there’s still room for improvement.
- Who’s the best shooter at Shakhtar?
- Taison, Maycon, Konoplyanka ... Many of them actually! Tete sidefoots it well either. So almost everyone, especially the strikers, do it very well.
- What number do you want to have while playing?
- I like many numbers: 8, 10. I have number 76 at the moment – my father’s birth year. I like this figure as well, I don’t want to change it and even think about it yet.
- In which top leagues and top teams would you like to play?
- I’m in the top team now. Now it remains to play, prove myself and show everything I’m capable of.
- Who is harder to score against - Pyatov or Trubin?
- Pyatov is experienced: sometimes you just swing your foot, while he’s near that corner already. So he immediately sees where you want to shoot. Trubin has huge potential and huge growth. He is also a top goalkeeper. He was fielded in UPL matches, and he played very well.
- Which Shakhtar U21 players have a great prospect of fulfilling their potential?
- Probably, that’s Mykhailo Mudryk. Plus Heorhii Sudakov - I watched him as well. In general, many guys. The current reserve team is great.
- How do you see your future at Shakhtar? What are you striving for?
- Hopefully, they will give me a chance to prove myself. I really want to stay here. This is my home club. I’ve been at Shakhtar since age seven, I really want to gain a foothold here in order to continue playing for the club. I strive to perform to top standards at my favourite club.
- Yes, I have already recovered. I hope that full training will begin next week and that I’ll be able to work with the whole team. Individual sessions still cannot replace the general group, no matter what you do. Plus I really want to play a friendly match. I look forward to taking the field.
- In the absence of games, do you have an additional possibility to analyze some tactical things?
- Of course I do. There are practically no championships held at the moment. I think many players watch their previous games to analyze the tactical mistakes. But in general, every player wants the season to resume, because it’s tough without full training and games.
- How did you support yourself mentally after the injury?
- It was very difficult initially, especially the month I spent on crutches. I would like to thank my wife, my family, my parents, the grandfather, the grandmother who supported me. Without them, it would’ve been very difficult. And I’d love to thank the team too: it was very nice when I was in Barcelona after the operation and they put on T-shirts with some words addressed to me. The coaching staff, the club, the management - they all did a lot for me to recover. Now it all depends on me. I will wait for a chance to prove myself.
- What was your first player role? Why are you a midfielder now?
- Since childhood, I’ve been playing in midfield nearly all the time. In general, my first position was behind the striker, a more attacking midfielder. I performed that role at the Youth Sports School and at the Academy from U14 to U17. And when I joined the U19 team, Valerii Kryventsov began to field me more often in the holding area, where there are more balls and where you need to win and play them more frequently. He probably instilled the current role in me.
- With what teammates do you communicate more now?
- Stepanenko, Khocholava, Shevchenko, Bondar, Sikan ... I keep in touch with everyone from time to time.
- Has postponing the European Championship given you any extra motivation to win the competition at Shakhtar in order to increase your chance of winning a Ukraine cap?
- Of course, every footballer fancies to be called up to the national team. The injury was very serious, so let’s do it step by step. I will wait for my chance at Shakhtar in order to prove myself and gain a foothold in the senior team.
- You participated in the UEFA Youth League final back in 2015. What did you lack to win it?
- To be honest, I don’t know. We played well, and the score was tight – 2-3. We can say that I got out of luck. But Chelsea had an excellent roster - the strongest team we’ve ever encountered. I don’t think that we were much inferior. It just happens like that in the final: one team win, the other lose. It was really frustrating.
- Why don’t you have a profile on Wikipedia?
- This question shouldn’t be addressed to me! I’m not the one to create a page there! Well, basically, I could ask my wife ...
- What’s your best centre-midfield partner?
- Talking about the UEFA Youth League and the reserve team, I played with Beka Vachiberadze. Then, in the reserve team and at Mariupol, I played with Danylo Ihnatenko. He focuses more on defending, on ball winning. We understood each other perfectly well. I have made just few appearances for Shakhtar so far, but the players here are top-level, it’s handy to play with everyone and it’s hard to single anyone out.
- What football rule would you like to change if you had this opportunity?
- I think we don’t need to reinvent a bicycle and change something. There are people to deal with that. It’s necessary to improve VAR as it appears to be highly questionable. Overall, it’s OK, football got fairer, but the system needs to be improved. The offside situations when you’ve got just half of your foot or shoulder off ... I mean the match vs Atalanta, for instance, when Viktor Kovalenko scored a goal at 0-0. Such offside situations are wrong.
- As a child, you played five-a-side a lot. Does it now help you in adult football?
- To be honest, those are completely different sports. In senior football, the distances are different, with a bigger volume of work. My father played five-a-side and futsal. He played for various clubs, including futsal for Shakhtar. I will always be really grateful to my father - he instilled the love of sport in me and trained a lot with me. I was already at the Shakhtar Academy back then, but sometimes, after everything else, I went to play five-a-side - I really liked it!
- Is it true that in childhood you went outdoors and played keepie-uppie, and when it had dropped along the way, you came back and started it all over again?
- Yes, that’s true. I played keepie-uppie a lot, I also lifted and stopped the ball ... Again, my father taught me to do that. First I watched him do it, then I did it myself. I wanted to cover the longest distance possible while juggling the ball. But you don’t need to do it too much (four to five thousand times). Just because, as I can remember, I did it to the point when my eyes felt sore. Some fifteen hundred is quite enough to feel the ball.
- How difficult was it to make it to Shakhtar? This is often asked by the younger generation, as well as their parents. What would you recommend?
- I come from Donetsk, and always, since childhood, I’ve dreamed of playing for Shakhtar. I attended trials at the age of five - they didn’t enroll me because I was too small, they were going to enroll the boys of my age just the following year. I came there again two years later because my father had left to play in a different town. Finally, since age seven, I was moving step by step. Presently, I’m in the first team and, I guess, everything’s just beginning.
- While in quarantine, what did you do of the things that you hadn’t had enough time for previously?
- I started learning English. I didn’t have enough time for that in Mariupol, I started and gave it up because there were very long away trips. The shortest one lasted five hours. Matches took place every week. You arrive, just having recovered from another away game, and you must go somewhere else again. Even more so when we played on Wednesdays and Saturdays. And currently, I train three times a week in the evening with a tutor via Skype. I’ve made some progress, but there’s still room for improvement.
- Who’s the best shooter at Shakhtar?
- Taison, Maycon, Konoplyanka ... Many of them actually! Tete sidefoots it well either. So almost everyone, especially the strikers, do it very well.
- What number do you want to have while playing?
- I like many numbers: 8, 10. I have number 76 at the moment – my father’s birth year. I like this figure as well, I don’t want to change it and even think about it yet.
- In which top leagues and top teams would you like to play?
- I’m in the top team now. Now it remains to play, prove myself and show everything I’m capable of.
- Who is harder to score against - Pyatov or Trubin?
- Pyatov is experienced: sometimes you just swing your foot, while he’s near that corner already. So he immediately sees where you want to shoot. Trubin has huge potential and huge growth. He is also a top goalkeeper. He was fielded in UPL matches, and he played very well.
- Which Shakhtar U21 players have a great prospect of fulfilling their potential?
- Probably, that’s Mykhailo Mudryk. Plus Heorhii Sudakov - I watched him as well. In general, many guys. The current reserve team is great.
- How do you see your future at Shakhtar? What are you striving for?
- Hopefully, they will give me a chance to prove myself. I really want to stay here. This is my home club. I’ve been at Shakhtar since age seven, I really want to gain a foothold here in order to continue playing for the club. I strive to perform to top standards at my favourite club.