Dynamo forward Matvii Ponomarenko shared his impressions after the match against Shakhtar (1:2) on UPL TV.
– Today was your first senior derby at this level – and you scored. What are your impressions after the match?
– I have good impressions of the game because matches between Dynamo and Shakhtar always bring positive emotions. It’s a celebration for all of Ukraine, for the people. So I felt positive emotions. It’s good that I scored but unfortunately we lost today in this derby. That happens, it’s football. We don’t stop, we move forward. Today Shakhtar may have been stronger and won. But there’s still a lot ahead, something to strive for, and we will prepare. We also have the Cup final coming up so we need to win a trophy.
– In the episode with your goal you shot from the center of the field. Not everyone would dare to do that…
– I hardly thought about it, it all happens in a second, you could say an impulse comes to your head. I saw that Riznyk had come far off his line and I decided to shoot. It worked out – I scored, this is great.
– The first half was good and high-quality from Dynamo, you were leading. What do you think happened in the second half? Why were Shakhtar able to turn the game around?
– Honestly, I don’t know. We played well in the first half. We had chances, we could have scored more. And in the second half too: there were many chances and even a disallowed goal. I don’t know what happened. Maybe we dropped too deep in defense, gave the initiative to Shakhtar and their players are very good on the ball. That’s probably what they took advantage of. We’ll analyze it after the game and they’ll point out the mistakes we made.
– The moment in the final minutes when you fell in the opponent’s penalty area: was it a foul?
– For me, it was a clear penalty. Shakhtar were awarded a penalty when Traoré fell in the match against Zorya. It was the same kind of moment – a corner, I’m being held, I fall. They didn’t even review it… There’s nothing more to say.
