ANDRIEVSKY: “We wanted to play in the Champions League but we never actually won in LE”

Midfielder “Dynamo” Alexander Andrievsky He spoke about the unsuccessful performance of the Kyiv team at European competitions:

“It is now difficult to say exactly what caused such a negative outcome. First of all, there is a war in our country, so we had to spend a lot of time on the roads, and the educational process undoubtedly suffered from this, the education was not as high-quality as it could be. at home, at our base in Koncha -Zaspe. It was also difficult morally because all the men were concerned about their families, their children and their parents – and that had a very powerful effect.

Is it possible to pass Benfica? At that time there were no complaints about the physical condition – we were very well prepared, we trained intensively and there were no problems with physical fitness. But the psychological state left much to be desired, according to reports from Ukraine.

At the same time, Benfica is a very strong competitor, comparable to Ajax, which we played under Alexander Khatskevich’s coaching, and then that season the Amsterdam team reached the semi-finals of the Champions League. So, given how Benfica is performing in the current group stage (group top with PSG, Juve and Maccabi X), Lisbon is quite capable of repeating Ajax’s path as it did a few years ago.

What was lost? Of course, our fans were not enough – this is 100%. But that shouldn’t be an excuse. Our goal was to play in the Champions League, but it turned out that we could not win even a single win in the Europa League. I think there are reasons for this, but I don’t want to make excuses for such a performance.

Reception in Poland? No complaints about the reception, everything was top notch. In Poland, both the football teams and our refugee citizens who had to flee from Ukraine were very warmly welcomed. And for that, many thanks to Poland for such hospitality.”