Zabarny: When I started playing, I was too kind on the field. Mircea Lucescu told me: “You need to be strong, you need to be scary”

Defender Bournemouth And Ukrainian national team Ilya Zabarny told about the contribution he made Mircea Lucescu in his improvement as a football player, and also shared his goals in his professional career.

“When I started playing, I was too kind on the field. This was not good. My coach Mircea Lucescu told me: “You need to be strong, you need to be scary.” I had to stop being too kind.”

“I’m young, but I’m playing against experienced players. Every time I need to learn more to become better tomorrow than I was yesterday. This is the only way to get to the top. I like the way Virgil van Dijk plays. I watch him move on the field. When I play against someone, I watch how they communicate and I learn from that.”

“I have room for improvement. I try to take something out of every game that helps me grow. I’m young, but I want more because I’m a leader at heart. I want to be a leader.”

Ilya Zabarny is a graduate of Dynamo, for whose main team he played from 2019 to 2023. Then, at the end of January 2023, the center back moved to Bournemouth for an amount of about 27 million euros (a record sale in the history of the Kyiv club).

By the age of 22, Ilya Zabarny had already played 45 matches for the Ukrainian national team, scoring one goal. As part of the blue-yellow team, Zabarny performed at Euro 2020 and Euro 2024.

This season, Zabarny played for Bournemouth in all 12 Premier League matches, and in each of them the defender spent all 90 minutes on the field, being the club’s leader in playing minutes.

Ilya Zabarny’s Bournemouth will play their next match on November 30 away against Wolverhampton.