We had plenty of chances
Thursday, September 10, 2026
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Comment from Shakhtar U19 head coach Oleksii Bielik after the game against PSV U19 in the UEFA Youth League
– Shakhtar U19’s first UEFA Youth League match against PSV U19 is over. How do you assess the game and what went wrong?
– I’m happy with the team’s performance. If I’m slightly disappointed, it’s only with the final score. In terms of the game itself, I can say that in the opening minutes – and that’s probably how it should be when the hosts are playing at home – they were active, while we were more focused on defending. However, apart from the goal and a few crosses, we generally dealt with the situation well. I’m very pleased with the second half in particular because we showed our football, had plenty of chances and, I believe, should have equalised. However, our actions in the final third were affected more by the fact that we had played Karpaty U21 in the domestic league and then had no training session and were travelling. We trained at the PSV training ground for two days, and under these circumstances, as you can imagine, it’s difficult to work on anything when there are cameras around the pitch and the opposition’s players and coaches walking around, so you can’t practise anything that you could then use in the game. So we trained more in a maintenance mode, and the preparation was largely theoretical. Of course, we would have liked to have both theory and practice, but we couldn’t prepare anything in front of the opponents. However, I’ll repeat: if we put the score aside, I’m happy with the lads – they did a great job.
– There are still five UEFA Youth League matches ahead. Based on today’s game, what does the team need to work on most?
– We need to work on everything because we are a team that want to dominate with the ball. At the same time, we understand that things will not always go our way, so we need to be like killers in the final phase of attacks and make the most of our chances, as well as working on our defending, of course. I’m happy with our defending because, despite conceding a goal, I can’t particularly remember the hosts creating anything, especially in the second half. So we’ll work on these areas. There are plenty of matches still to come, and I’m sure we’ll show our qualities in them and the results will go our way.
– I’m happy with the team’s performance. If I’m slightly disappointed, it’s only with the final score. In terms of the game itself, I can say that in the opening minutes – and that’s probably how it should be when the hosts are playing at home – they were active, while we were more focused on defending. However, apart from the goal and a few crosses, we generally dealt with the situation well. I’m very pleased with the second half in particular because we showed our football, had plenty of chances and, I believe, should have equalised. However, our actions in the final third were affected more by the fact that we had played Karpaty U21 in the domestic league and then had no training session and were travelling. We trained at the PSV training ground for two days, and under these circumstances, as you can imagine, it’s difficult to work on anything when there are cameras around the pitch and the opposition’s players and coaches walking around, so you can’t practise anything that you could then use in the game. So we trained more in a maintenance mode, and the preparation was largely theoretical. Of course, we would have liked to have both theory and practice, but we couldn’t prepare anything in front of the opponents. However, I’ll repeat: if we put the score aside, I’m happy with the lads – they did a great job.
– There are still five UEFA Youth League matches ahead. Based on today’s game, what does the team need to work on most?
– We need to work on everything because we are a team that want to dominate with the ball. At the same time, we understand that things will not always go our way, so we need to be like killers in the final phase of attacks and make the most of our chances, as well as working on our defending, of course. I’m happy with our defending because, despite conceding a goal, I can’t particularly remember the hosts creating anything, especially in the second half. So we’ll work on these areas. There are plenty of matches still to come, and I’m sure we’ll show our qualities in them and the results will go our way.