Georgy SUDAKOV: “It is my personal dream to play against Barcelona”

21-year-old midfielder of Shakhtar Donetsk Georgy Sudakov He shared his expectations from the Barcelona match.

– Do you remember when Chigrinsky played for Barcelona? So what are your expectations for tomorrow’s match?

– To tell the truth, no. I remember my first football jersey was a Shakhtar jersey and it was Darijo Srna. As for Dmitry Chigrinsky, I don’t remember those matches because I was still too young. As for tomorrow’s match, as Dario said, we are not the favorites of this match, but we are going on the field to play our football 100 percent, we want to play with the ball. We know what Barcelona is like and what it represents in this world, but we have very good qualities, so we need to be confident. I hope we can showcase our football tomorrow and have fun so that the fans will be happy too. I can’t say that we are afraid of playing against someone, we don’t have that. We want to play against the strongest teams. Last year we played against Real Madrid in the Champions League and we played very well, especially in Warsaw. We may even have missed victory. These are the biggest matches we have been to throughout our lives. It is my personal dream to play against Barcelona. I don’t even want to think about any fear, I want to have fun and play first. We understand that this will be very difficult, but there is no fear.

– How does the war in Ukraine affect the team and life?

– Of course, the issue of war is very difficult for all of us. We found it in Ukraine, in Kiev. I was with my pregnant wife during the war and my child was born during the war. It’s hard because there’s so much traveling now, I don’t get to see my kid and my wife much. But this is an additional motivation for us and all our players. Considering what is happening in Ukraine now, we ignore all our movements, our fatigue – we do not perceive it anymore. We want to enjoy football and show the whole country how important it is to compete not only on the battlefield but also on the football field.

– You are a young football player. What do you think of Barcelona’s youth?

– I saw a 17-year-old young man score the winning goal in Barcelona’s last match. So I can say that La Massia is doing very good work and there is incredible talent here. When I played with the U16s against Barcelona there were very good players with incredible qualities. Even though they are young, they are playing at a very high level. That’s why we don’t take age into account, it doesn’t play such a big role in football anymore. There are already many great players at the age of 17-18 who show their quality and character and get results.

Tomorrow, October 25, Shakhtar Donetsk will face Catalan Barcelona away in the 3rd round match of the Champions League group stage. The match is scheduled to start at 19.45 Kiev time.