Mircea Lucescu: Most likely, I’ll take decision not to play Dynamo in Lviv

26-04-15 22:45:03

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Press conference by Shakhtar head coach after the match vs Dynamo Kyiv.

- Spectacular game. It was evident that both teams wanted to claim the win in this encounter. Dynamo very well organized their defence and played more on the counter. While we controlled the game. Unfortunately, we did not score in the episode when Adriano found himself one-on-one with Shovkovskyi. Who, as usual, turned in a top-notch performance. Difficult ... I want to repeat it once again: we train and live in difficult conditions. Playing against everyine: our opponents and the stands which don’t support us. Perhaps they don’t quite like us. Previously, they liked us more. I can’t help but touch upon the subject of refereeing. As long ago as last June, I said that victories would be definitely determined by refereeing. In the first leg, when we played in Kyiv, there was an unfair sending-off of Shevchuk. And today - it is not clear why they didn’t award a penalty for Rybalka’s handball. Maybe we do not deserve to win, as once again I want to say that the game was even. But the situation suggests that there was a clear penalty, it must have been awarded. Part of the game consisted of dives only. All players were lying on the pitch longer than they played. There were so many pauses. Plus we waited until the smoke clears - all this together affected the teams, there was nervousness. I do not think the title depended on tonight's encounter. They said yesterday that even if we win, we wouldn’t have a chance to win the league title. Dynamo play all their games at home, while we do it away. But we will continue to play in order to claim the second spot, which allows us to make it to the Champions League qualifying rounds. We cannot afford to miss that competition. For five years in a row we he won the league title, while now it’s going to another club. Dynamo will probably win it. I want to congratulate them, the team deserves it. They took advantage of the difficult situation, in which Shakhtar have found themselves this season. It’s sad to realise that the whole audience was against us. Although that’s us who brought the Champions League to Lviv. It would’ve been better if we’d played this game in Kyiv. Most likely, I will take a decision not to play matches against Dynamo in Lviv. Maybe next time we will play at the NSC Olympiyskyi in Kyiv. The same thing happened in the Cup, when we met with Karpaty, who used to play in the First League back then. There was a major aggression toward us: bottles were thrown, different other objects, and the match was interrupted several times.

- Today you’ve fielded Ismaily and Kryvtsov. Can you explain these personnel decisions?
- I was thinking about what awaits us next season. Kucher is 33, Shevchuk is 36. We must prepare the team for the next season. I am happy with the players who replaced them today. It’s very sad that Kryvtsov suffered an injury after taking a knock to the head. At the moment, he is still lying in the dressing room. The face-off was quite aggressive, just as all matches between Shakhtar and Dynamo.

- You said that you work for the future. Can we say that next season, some personnel revolution or reshaping awaits Shakhtar?
- Let's finish this league season first, let's see what they decide on the next premiership, how many teams will be there, what will be the format. And after that we will decide on it taken as a whole. It’s not very pleasant both to me and my players to play in the presence of some 500-1,000 fans. It just doesn’t correspond to our professional level, to be honest. It is not known yet what the players’ opinions will be and what decisions they will take in the future. It is possible that they might also ponder whether to stay or not. Playing only two games during one year against Dynamo to fill the stadium, and that's it? That’s somewhat insubstantial. Of course, no one is to blame for the situation. All that is very difficult. Unfortunately, there are some political issues that we cannot solve. But this situation affects us too.

FC Shakhtar