– What were your expectations from Shakhtar’s meeting with the champion of Iceland?
– Of course, everyone understood that the clear favorite of this match would be the Ukrainian club. Personally, I didn’t know much about this Icelandic team. As it turned out, this is a rather weak club. “Miners” won an easy victory, and with small forces. Once again, Arda Turan made a big rotation of its lineup. Shakhtar won, as a result, on foot.
– Compared to Sunday’s match against “Dynamo» Arda Turan immediately made 9 changes in the starting line-up. Only Riznyk and Bondarenko started in the first minutes. In two days, the people of Donetsk have a game against SK “Poltava»far from being a giant of Ukrainian football. To what do you associate such large-scale changes in the composition?
– The coach has full right to make such decisions. I will say my opinion: “Shakhtar” has always treated European Cup matches very responsibly. These are important, image matches for “miners” in Europe. As for this meeting, seeing the course of the game, it was necessary for the Donetsk team to score as many goals as possible. 6-7 goals, it will always be a plus. In case of equal points after the main stage, the goal difference is very important. With a score of 2:0, our players decided that the job was done. They didn’t want to attack already, or they couldn’t. Or maybe, at the current stage, priority is already given to the championship of Ukraine. That’s why they gave game practice to other football players who don’t play much in the UPL.
Source: sport.ua