“A real derby.”, — write: football.ua
A real derby.
Denis Popov, getty images 03 November 2025, 17:27
“The Shakhtar Brazilians played with the aim of causing me discomfort, but it adds emotions to the audience, tension, passion. I think it was an interesting game, but it’s difficult to play without rotation. Maybe I didn’t have enough strength somewhere. I’m talking about myself. It was as if I felt good, but by the end of the match I was a little bloated.
The first goal? They are doing some analysis, preparing for us, that’s why they blocked me, tried to restrain me.
They prepared well for both matches, analyzed the game, worked on mistakes, so they acted very intelligently today. And by their standards, they blocked me, there the partners did not understand a bit, they missed a fast ball – like a cold shower, so they already started playing more on emotions, not as agreed.
For us, this is a negative result, we accept it, but the battle is not over yet, there is still more to come, we will work and try to achieve what we want,” Popov said.
Earlier, Oleksandr Shovkovskyi spoke about the game with Shakhtar.