League title is won through defensive organization
Saturday, April 17, 2021
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Press conference by Dynamo head coach Mircea Lucescu after defeating Shakhtar in Kyiv
- It was difficult for me to organize Dynamo's play in such a short period and to achieve a result. We did it. From a human point of view, it's hard for me to play against Shakhtar. This is not revenge - that’s just out of the question. In general, I would like to say a few words about this match. There was no spectacular action. There was play between two strong teams who were solving their own tasks, each side had their own weapons in terms of conducting this game. We knew that to some extent this is a very important match: after Shakhtar, we’ve got really tough away games against Mariupol, Vorskla, Kolos. It’s difficult to manage there without losses and win every match, and Shakhtar, had they won, could’ve got close to us. I want to repeat once again: there was no spectacular game today. We organized our defence very well. Based on my extensive experience, I know that the league title is won through defensive organization. And there are two methods of organizing defensive play. One is through very good fitness, tactical side, good coherence between the thirds which allows you to seal off the pathways, to keep distance, and to timely approach the player with the ball. The second method of organizing defensive play which I used at Shakhtar is through possession, very good control, when you practically do not give this ball away to your opponents. Today there was a match where Shakhtar, having highly skillful, individually strong players, controlled the ball well, but we played in an organized way defensively. We knew everything about them, I told the players everything they would have to do. We defended very well and virtually didn’t allow them to create any dangerous chances near our goal. Purely professionally, as a coach, I am grateful to my guys and in the dressing room I told them that they fulfilled everything that we had prepared, everything that I asked them to do in the course of preparation for the match.
- The first half by your team was more confident, and early in the second half it seemed that the players were a little bit panicky: Mykolenko and De Pena were just shooting the ball in an unknown direction, you reacted emotionally to that. How can you comment on this? And I really liked Andriievskyi’s performance in the holding area - please comment on his play.
- After the match, I congratulated the players and said: well done, thank you for your defensive play, for the way you listened to me, for how cleverly you played the match, but after winning the ball, I didn't like how you used it. There’s still work to do. Confidence is still missing at times, but it wasn’t sufficient due to a certain stress from the importance of today's match. This affected the preparation and the game. They have been waiting for the victory very much and for a very long time. It’s always difficult to stay in the top spot. Just individually, we cannot reach the technique of the Brazilians, but we must grow through relationships, mutual understanding, through interplay. We must control the ball collectively.