- What was the reaction of the team to the Eredivisie cancellation due to coronavirus and title victory of Ajax?
- There was no title victory. The season was cancelled after 25/26 matches. There was no appointed champion and thus no victory. The tickets for the Champions League were however appointed. We got the second best ticket, which caused us to end up playing the qualifying rounds, first against Viktoria Plzen and now Dynamo Kyiv.
- How were you getting ready for the season, considering the new realities? Were there any innovations?
- We kept training with all the COVID-19 measures, the government allowed us to train, with social distancing on and off the pitch. After the government gave all team sports a go to train the same way we did before the pandemic, we restarted the group training as we know it. We could see that players needed time to get back to their physical level and we took the time. It required more monitoring. We specifically designed the preseason with a lot of good opponents, to measure ourselves with them and see what had to be done to be ready for our first official match, against Plzen.
- How important is the Champions League to AZ from the point of view of finance and annual budget?
- Of course it’s important, because it can boost your budget.
- What was your reaction when AZ was drawn against FC Dynamo Kyiv in the Champions League qualifier?
- We knew that in this stage of the qualifying rounds of the Champions League that we would draw against a good team. We had to look into all three opponents at that point. So it was just a superficial reaction. Some of the staff members remembered the match in the Europa League against Dynamo Kyiv in 2010 (1-2 in favor of Dynamo Kyiv). That was one of the first things that came up.
- What do you know about Dynamo Kyiv team?
- We, as of today, have five days to prepare ourselves. We need those days because I think we will play against a very strong opponent. You can tell that they have a good team.
- Who are Dynamo leading players, in your opinion?
- We know one player in particular: Fran Sol. We have met in the games with his former team, Willem II and know he’s a guy who has no trouble scoring and finding the goal, as he ended up as one of the topscorers in the league with 14 goals.
- Is the home/away ground a decisive factor under current circumstances?
- We know that it will only be one match, an away game is of course in Dynamo Kyiv’s benefit, although there are no supporters in the stadium. Like we would know our pitch, wind better in our home stadium, they will too.
- Did you watch Dynamo's Super Cup match against FC Shakhtar Donetsk? What are your impressions of Kyiv side play?
- We have indeed seen the game and it’s striking that they won the Super Cup, keeping in mind that FC Shakhtar Donetsk was semi finalist in the Europa League recently. It shows that Dynamo is a very tough opponent.
Tetyana Sirenko, exclusively for www.fcdynamo.kiev.ua
