Shakhtar’s manager Igor Jovichevich He talked about his failure in the Champions League 6th round match against RB Leipzig (0:4) and his entry into the Europa League.

– What did you say to your players after the match when everyone was in a circle on the field?

– Lift your head! I told them to raise their heads. Because we played six games in the Champions League: yes we lost today, but there were six good games. And today we gained experience, we became better. Leipzig is a very good team and they are not ashamed to lose. It shapes us. We did our best. Our team has already beaten Leipzig once, and if we do it a second time, we can say that we are world champions. This is a new project, a new team, young people. We’ve been working for three and a half months and we’ve accomplished a lot, an incredible job! Now we look at ourselves and see that we are getting better from the beginning of the journey. We went to the Europa League, where there were a lot of great teams. Barcelona and Ajax will play in the Europa League, while Atletico Madrid did not qualify. We appreciate what we’ve achieved. And congratulations to Leipzig. This is a very good team and Marco Rose is a top coach. We must look ahead, lift our heads and work.

– How do you evaluate the Europa League after the performances in the Champions League?

– I don’t know what it’s like to play in the Europa League. I don’t have that experience. As in the Champions League, this will be my first match in this tournament. But as for the first experience – not bad. We showed our strength, we showed ourselves well in the first match against Leipzig, when the opponents had not yet regained their strength. We combined our character and talent, managed to get 6 points – and that’s not so bad in my opinion. And today’s match was a good experience for us. We have a big challenge ahead – the Europa League. We see this as an opportunity. There are some very good teams playing there. We have time to prepare, it will be a winter vacation. So let’s see. Either way, it’s an interesting challenge.

– How hard was it for you to prepare for this game?

– We are at war. It’s hard to prepare in a situation where there’s a battle, you can’t train and you still have to think about how to approach the match tactically. This is a matter of politics and sports. We are now completely dependent on the political situation. Of course we would be happy to play in Ukraine, but the situation is difficult. Training takes place with constant weather alerts. Football heard on the street now, emotions. And even though we were on the road for 12 hours, the game was still great. This is very tiring. But the team played, and many of them are not able to get into the Champions League even without such difficulties.

– Can you analyze the game? And how much has the opponent changed compared to the first match?

– Of course, this is a completely different team. They are more confident now as they are happy with both the win and the draw. Leipzig is a fast, dangerous counterattack team that uses the field well. The second goal completely closed the match. After that, we broke and missed more.

– The season was very bright, Shakhtar inspired many Ukrainians with his games. What do you remember most about this Champions League?

“We knew exactly who we were playing for. We said that from the first game and we repeat it today, because we feel the energy of the fans in individual messages, social networks, people defending Ukraine. This is a large number of fans who love football and protect the country. And they are satisfied with the result and at least We wanted to thank them through our struggle to give them maximum strength to forget their problems for a moment. And we succeeded: our energy increased in every match, we did some truly amazing things. For the first time in the Champions League, with four or five times their budget, with more experience, but with more experience. when you play against teams that act so confidently, it’s incredible. And today’s result also makes us appreciate what we’ve done. We can be sad, but we can’t bow our heads. We should be proud. In these conditions, stronger and more experienced clubs wouldn’t even make it into the Europa League. And many teams go nowhere. Therefore, Ukraine can be proud of us, just as we are proud of our compatriots. il. So let’s continue. Let’s take a break from this cycle, forget about the Champions League and get ready for the Europa League in February. And we have five more matches in the Ukrainian championship, where we want to beat the first-placed Dnipro-1.