Dynamo Kyiv — Zrinsky, photo UPL November 6, 2025, 11:57 p.m

Losing is always bad, and losing in the opening two matches of the main stage of a tournament like the UEFA Conference League in its updated format is even worse. However, according to this scenario, Dynamo Kyiv started their performances in this year’s draw of this competition, so now Oleksandr Shovkovskyi’s team will have to make up for lost time in the upcoming confrontations.

In this context, the match against the Bosnian club Zrinski from the city of Mostar, which in general identifies itself as a team closely connected with Croatian football, was an opportunity for the “white and blue” to get the first decent number of points, because before that, Igor Shtimac’s team had only a victory over the modest Gibraltar club Lincoln Red Imps (5:0), and this, obviously, not a very convincing argument in favor of Dynamo’s opponents in the reporting meeting.

And then directly on the field, it quickly became clear that the Kyiv team had to overcome such an opponent without extraordinary efforts. Although Zrinski tried to spend the opening minutes in positional attacks and created the first dangerous moment with Damashkan’s efforts and his unsuccessful header past the right post from close range.

However, Shovkovsky’s team took the initiative and methodically put pressure on the opponents until they conceded a goal. It happened in the middle of the first half, when a corner kick from Buyalsky from the left flank at the near post ended with a header from Popov. And immediately Vitaly himself should have removed all questions about the winner of at least the first half, but he could not repeat his goal of the second Classic against Shakhtar last week.

Meanwhile, this productive attack by Dynamo and the generally high-quality play of Shovkovsky’s team was enough for the opponents not to cherish hopes of improving their own situation before the break. And even after the rest, Zrinski missed the second ball quite quickly, when Bujalski quickly played a standard on the left flank of the attack with a pass for a free kick to Pikhalyonka, who immediately shot at Guerrero.

The Bosnians reacted to this with a triple substitution immediately, but while the fresh players were taking their places on the field, Dynamo managed to score the third goal. Kabaev did everything on his own in the attack in the 59th minute: he took the rebound in the central zone, and he dragged the ball to the penalty area, and finally shot under the left post. Everything, the winner of this game at that time we already found out in advance, but there was one more important point of the plan of Kyiv for the game.

The fact is that the goal difference of the “white and blue” against the background of two defeats in the opening rounds was 0:5, and with such a fast-moving tournament with these indicators at the end, it can be very difficult to claim something significant. That is what Dynamo did so that this negative difference not only disappeared, but also turned into a positive one. Buyalskyi’s goal from Kabaev’s pass in the 67th minute to the center of the penalty area, as well as a couple of assists from the fresh Shaparenko to Yarmolenko and Blenuts to the left edge of the other team’s possessions helped a lot. As a result, there was a rout, which, let’s be honest, no one expected.

In the next round, Dynamo Kyiv will play away from Cypriot Omonia, while Bosnia’s Zrinski will host Sweden’s Hekken.

Zrinsky: Lyubich — Vrankovich, Masich, Duymovich, Mamich — Pranich (Chavar, 79), Jurasek (Ivanchich, 58), Filipovich (Surdanovich, 58), Shakota (Mikich, 86) — Majich, Damashkan (Bari, 58).

Warning: Jurasek