Polunin: Some new trend has come to Ukrainian football: everyone is playing somewhere, but no one is responsible for anything

The next one defeat the match ended innext round group stage Europa League For Dynamo. Alexander Shovkovsky’s team lost away to German Hoffenheim with the score 0:2. We discussed this game with Andrey Polunin, a well-known former player of Dnepr and the Ukrainian national team. In addition, his career included performances in Germany – Nuremberg and St. Pauli.

— Hoffenheim, before the match with the Kiev team, lost 4 matches in a row in the German Bundesliga. Could this affect his game with Dynamo?

– No. We all know that the Bundesliga is one of the strongest championships in Europe. This has been happening for many years. And we understand perfectly well what the level of the UPL is now. In the summer we saw the game and results of Polesie and Krivbass, now Shakhtar and Dynamo. At the moment, the level of the Ukrainian Premier League and the German Bundesliga is incomparable. Yes, there were successful seasons in Ukrainian football – Shakhtar won the UEFA Cup. Dnepr played in the Europa League final, but we understand what happened after 2014. However, the presidents of our leading clubs cannot put together an objective price for their leaders – their performance in international matches does not correspond to the announced price tag.

— At Hoffenheim, Czech player Glozek scored two goals, hitting Buschan’s goal in each half. Whose fault is it?

— In football, to score goals, you need to create scoring chances. The German team did it much better. But the vice-champion of Ukraine was unable to play reliably in defense. In the first goal, after a flank pass into the center of the penalty area, Mikhavko rushed forward, leaving Glozhek behind. This is an individual mistake by the young central defender of the Kiev team; he needed to play with Glozhek personally.

What’s interesting is that about five minutes later Popov got a pass towards the visitors’ penalty area, and only Buschan’s exit from the gate helped save his own goal from a sure goal. In the second goal, Glozek and Kramaric together beat six Dynamo Kyiv players. In our team, as usual, no one meets anyone. Voloshin runs back imposingly in this episode. Glozek dragged the ball to someone else’s penalty area, played to his tall center forward and calmly shot from 20 meters out. And again – he calmly handles the ball, looks at the goal and takes a shot into the corner of the goal.

I think that there is a global mistake in Ukrainian football – everyone plays somewhere, but no one is responsible for anything. This is some new trend that has come to Ukrainian football.

At all times, Ukrainian football was famous for its defenders; we played skillfully in defending our goal. Let’s remember Dynamo Kiev in 1975 and 1986. Now I see that we don’t have quality defenders at all. Someone may launch an attack, advance the attack. But we don’t have football players who can play individually. I like Alexander Svatok, he plays little for the Ukrainian national team, but he excluded Kane and Lukaku from the game when our team faced England and Belgium. As for the play of Bondar, Matvienko and Popov, they are tactically illiterate. Mikhavko has no experience yet. So, this is a huge problem that is visible in every match.

— Dynamo had only one shot on target in this match, on target from Baumann – Brazhko powerfully struck from outside the penalty area in the opening of the match. In this component, Shakhtar and Dynamo play equally poorly in Europe…

— You need to play actively in attack, act at high speed. There is none of this. Instead, we start every attack with the defenders and holding midfielders passing the ball back to the goalkeeper. What is it? In the first half, the same Bushchan rolled the ball forward to Mikhailenko, and he made a mistake on the line of his own penalty area – miraculously the hosts did not score a goal. Why play for a young guy who has picked up jitters? Well, would he have passed the ball to the left to Dubinchak, and what would it have done?

Here I would like to tell you about one more new thing – I heard from several sources that there is an unspoken rule in our national team and leading clubs to make substitutions after the 65th minute of the game. In the Hoffenheim – Dynamo (Kyiv) match, substitutions suggested themselves at half-time, but there were none. The first substitution took place only in the 70th minute of the match. We lose 0:1, then 0:2, but don’t change anyone. Is everyone happy with everything? In connection with what such innovations are, it is not clear to me.

— Will we soon see a ray of light in the dark kingdom, are we talking about the performance of our giants in European competitions?

“I don’t think anything will change in the near future.” Shakhtar will play against Arsenal in London at the end of October, and Dynamo will visit Roma. I believe it will be even more difficult. Of course, war affects all areas of our lives. Due to long travel, players cannot fully recover; our best clubs cannot invite quality foreign players.

But we remember what foreign players played in our championship 15 years ago. Dnepr, Metalist, Shakhtar and Dynamo could afford to buy quality football players from abroad. Now the level of UPL has dropped significantly. I used to work in Neftyanik and knew all the players in the First League. Some of them are now playing in the UPL, although previously they would not have had a single chance to play in the elite division. So draw your conclusions.