Mircea Lucescu: Format of the championship may affect results

25-04-15 08:49:50

Text SizePrintSend

The latest issue of the interactive club magazine is about to be released. It features an author's material of Shakhtar’s head coach. Mircea Lucescu analyses the current situation in the Ukrainian championship, drawing analogies with the history of Romanian football. The Pitmen’s head coach gives examples of how details can change the balance of power during the tournament.

We bring you excerpts from the article. Its full version can be found in an interactive publication, the release of which will be announced additionally!

- When I first arrived in Ukraine, the same team had been winning the premiership for many years. And strangely, the same team year after year played the most important matches only starting from the mid-season... Shakhtar’s first game under my leadership - and we face Dynamo on matchday 1. In Kyiv. That is, the season was opened with a super match; this is nonsense! We won 2-0. Goals were scored by Lewandowski and Duljaj. Following the sporting norms, the second half of the championship had to start with a return match, this time in Donetsk. But the Federation urgently changed the format of the championship - directly in the process of the league campaign: the Shakhtar vs Dynamo match was moved to the last round. Then I realized that there was something wrong.

Next example: we had to start the 2008-09 season with two away games - both in Lviv, which, firstly, was not right in relation to the league winning team. Second, it contradicted with the ethics of football. The championship cannot start for the team with two away matches in a row, because footballers play, first of all, for their fans! As a result, Shakhtar lost five points in the first rounds, finishing in the middle of the table after the first round of the championship... Before, none of the teams played two away games at the start of the season. As a rule, one home game was followed by an away fixture. Why do I remember this? Because it is a vivid example of how the format of the championship may affect the results shown by the team! Please note: in the same year, we played a match with Barcelona, reaching the final of the UEFA Cup and winning it, with eliminating Dynamo after two games in the semi-finals.

I have already gone through a similar situation in Romania, where Steaua, the team of the Ceausescu family, won 100 games in a row! Just incredible! Fortunately, Ukraine has not come to that yet... Although it is very similar to that.

FC Shakhtar