Dynamo's forward who scored a brace against Shakhtar in the U19 derby shared his impressions after the match.
– Great emotions! Everyone was focused and ready for the game. I’m not the only hero of this match – the whole team are heroes because it wasn’t just me playing, it was all of us together. We’re all very happy that we’ve closed the gap with Shakhtar in the standings. Tomorrow we’ll rest and then start preparing for the next games. This was just one match – there’s still the whole championship ahead, the second round.
– What went wrong after going 2:0 up? How did the opponent manage to come back?
– After scoring the second goal we thought the job was done. But in matches like this you can’t relax. The free kick came out of nowhere, they scored and then there was some confusion – Shakhtar got emotional, pushed forward and equalized. It’s good that we quickly regrouped, left the mistakes behind and went forward again. We didn’t settle for a draw – we wanted to win. The opponents, after equalizing, sat back, thinking the game was over. But we have a different mentality – we always aim to win. At 2:2 we had nothing to lose so we attacked and scored again. I think we deserved the victory.
– You watched the third goal from the bench. What was happening there at that moment?
– Honestly I’ve never seen a goal like that before. The weather helped us – thanks to the wind the ball flew right into the net. Of course credit to our player who decided to shoot or cross – I’m not sure what he intended but the main thing is that the ball went in and gave us the win. We were so happy, especially because earlier we scored what I believe was a clean goal that was disallowed. Maybe it was payback.
– You’ve already had many braces in your career but scoring in the “Clasico” must feel special…
– Of course, it’s special to score – especially against Shakhtar. I hadn’t managed to score against them in U19 yet, only back in the academy days. So I was really motivated for this match. It even felt like déjà vu — back in U16 my uncle had his birthday the day before a match and I scored a beautiful goal then too. The same thing happened this time – I remembered it and I was determined to score. And I scored twice! I recently scored for the national team as well – that one was a birthday gift for my girlfriend and my mom. A nice trend and I’ll try to keep it going.
