Former midfielder of Dnipro and Ukraine national team Andriy Polunin evaluated the 6th round match of the Champions League between Shakhtar and RB Leipzig (0:4) and also shared his views on the result of Pitmen’s performance in the Champions League. tournament.

– In the 6th round of the Champions League group stage, Shakhtar only needed one victory to reach the 1/8 finals. However, in reality, everything happened differently – a big defeat at home. What is the reason for the failure?

– Here I propose to go back to July, when the new team had just assembled. Almost all foreign players left, the head coach of the team, Roberto De Zerbi, also left. Shakhtar is objectively one of the youngest teams in the current Champions League. Younger, only Salzburg, I guess.

Before the group stage started, everyone gave Shakhtar the last place in the group stage. And here, at the beginning of November, the Pitmen had a real chance to reach the Champions League play-offs. However, the opponent represented by the German “Leipzig” was too strong. The rival is one of the richest teams in the Bundesliga, a dynamically developing club. In September, Leipzig was managed by Marco Rose. After that, Leipzig did not lose in any official match. They fixed things in both the Bundesliga and the Champions League and in this case they beat Real Madrid.

As for the match between Shakhtar and Leipzig, the absence of Marian Shved and Oleksandr Zubkov became a big problem for the Ukrainian team. Yes, and Yefim Konoplya only healed his wound. It was clear from the mood of our players that they wanted to please their fans, but they could not get rid of the pressure of the opponent. The first and third goals of the Leipzig players came after the mistakes made by our men. Nkunku, Werner and Forsberg are talented players and quickly decided everything in their favor. The fourth goal accomplished by Olmo is a home preparation. Here Petryak did not expect such a free kick, and no one supported him.

– Is the class of Shakhtar and Leipzig players incomparable?

Of course, you have to be objective. The German team brings together the best players from all over Europe. Many of them are leaders in their national teams. In addition, they have one of the strongest German specialists.

– According to the result, it was Pitmen’s worst match in the group stage. And in terms of the quality of the game, was this meeting in Warsaw also the worst match?

Yes, I agree with this statement. In terms of the quality of the game, this is the worst match for the wards of Igor Jovicevich. It wasn’t easy in the games we played with Real Madrid and Celtic, but there was a lot of success on offense: chances were created, side passes were used well. All this was not here.

– Is the final third place in the group an objective indicator for Shakhtar?

We know how our country is. We are at war. 4 months ago we did not know what would happen to Ukrainian football. No one had imagined what would happen to Shakhtar. The leadership of the Donetsk club made bets on the young men on the bench, some players were returned from Mariupol. I must thank Igor Jovicevich – he managed to unite the guys. So third place in the group with Real Madrid and Leipzig is the maximum result, especially for a young team. It’s important to note here the fact that many players showed up this fall: Trubin, Konoplya, Bondar, Sudakov, Bondarenko, Mudrik and Sikan took a big step forward in their development. Everyone saw their progress. And Mudrik often doubled its price. All this is beautiful.

Look who of the European giants moved from the Champions League to the Europa League. Barcelona, ​​Juventus, Sevilla, Ajax, Bayer Leverkusen, Sporting CP and Salzburg. Good company, right? And Madrid “Atletico” and “Marseille” in general completed their performance at the current European competition. So everything is relative.