Dynamo gaffer has also told about Kyiv side tasks for the UEFA Europa League, the main lesson of Valeriy Lobanovskyi, tactics problems, performances of Dieumerci Mbokani, Derlis Gonzalez, Yevhen Khacheridi and other players.
UEFA.com: Yesterday we met Anatoliy Demianenko and chatted about Dynamo’s history, especially the triumph in the 1986 UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup. Did you watch the final when you were a boy?
Olexandr Khatskevych: Of course, I was 13 years old and I still remember the move, the counter-attack like a fan spinning around [that led to the goal for 2-0]. It has stuck in my memory for many years, I can still picture it now. It was just fantastic.
UEFA.com: Dynamo have become the first team to guarantee its place in the knockout rounds. Does that mean anything to you? Or is the most important thing that you achieved the objective?
Olexandr Khatskevych: Of course, the main task for us was to qualify for the spring part of the Europa League. The fact that we managed to qualify first doesn’t mean too much to me. Why? Because we have our objectives, one of which is getting first place in the group.
We have qualified two matches in advance, but we haven’t yet guaranteed first spot in the group yet. Right after we take first place, we’ll get some minimal satisfaction from the autumn stage of the Europa League.
UEFA.com: Nevertheless, how satisfied are you with the team’s performance at this stage after four fixtures?
Olexandr Khatskevych: We’ve had different games, halves and sections of matches. We haven’t had a complete stable performance. We’ve shown a lot of character in the Europa League. We failed to start some games aggressively or powerfully and finish them in the same way. I’ve got a few grey hairs after these games. So, we’d like to show some more stable and all-round performances, from the beginning till the end. We have a lot of work to do on this.
UEFA.com: My first question was about the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup 1986 and it was for a reason. That final was played in Lyon. This year’s Europa League final is also going to be played in Lyon. Do you understand what am I driving at?
Olexandr Khatskevych: When we started in the qualifying rounds of the Champions League, we also talked about getting to Kyiv for the final. But this is in the past now and we are definitely not playing in the Champions League final in Kyiv. But we have an aim, history is on our side and we’ll strive for this.
UEFA.com: Is there an impression that it’s very hard to work at Dynamo because you’ll always be in Lobanovskyi’s shadow?
Olexandr Khatskevych: A whole generation of managers has been and gone after Valeriy Lobanovskyi. Some of them used his methods, but the modern game is faster and more dynamic. The game is different. However, the fundamentals are the same in terms of how you control games and your attitude. Football doesn’t stand still, although Lobanovskyi was ahead of his time. Now football is developing in another direction. Unfortunately, we’re not able to see how he would have coped with this: foreign players coming in, the influence the coach has is different, there are agents now. Unfortunately he passed away too soon, but I believe he would have found new ways to keep up with the times and the changing football world.
UEFA.com: What influence did he have on you as a coach?
Olexandr Khatskevych: Obviously football has changed. He used to say, ‘Everyone should be able to do everything on the pitch.’ It was about interchangeability, physicality and technique, but he taught me something I have remembered ever since, and believe today as a coach, that the most important thing in football is your mentality. Your legs and hands are secondary. The most important thing is to think on the pitch; the quicker you think, the quicker you play. That’s the philosophy I teach my players.
UEFA.com: What was the biggest challenge for you when you were appointed as Dynamo Kyiv head coach?
Olexandr Khatskevych: First of all, I had to build on the foundation that Rebrov had laid, about ball control and his attitude to the game. The Spanish coaches that worked in the academy and in the first team gave us a lot and we had to maintain all that. But we have a different outlook and try to play more attacking football. Less possession of the ball, although we always have to control matches. We did our groundwork during pre-season in Austria. At times, we notice that we can continue pressing on the attack and do it quickly, but the guys try to keep the ball and play it safe. So, this change from ball possession to quick transitions from defense to attack is the most difficult thing because we’ve been working with the players only for a short period of time.
UEFA.com: Was the desire to change Dynamo’s style the reason why you changed formation from 3- 4-3 to 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1?
Olexandr Khatskevych: Of course, playing quick football means having two forwards and fast wingers, but we also adapt to the players we have in the squad. We want to exploit the strengths of our attacking players. We saw what needed to be changed and came up with the new formation with two strikers or 4-4-1-1. We try to take advantage of our players’ attributes.
UEFA.com: There’s a view that this formation is more vulnerable to quick counter-attacks from the opposition, especially when they escape your press. How do you try to overcome this issue?
Olexandr Khatskevych: Of course, we risk more going forward and leave space in midfield and in our half of the pitch, but we rely on our two centre backs and the defensive midfielder. They have to control the central area. We want one of our full backs to be involved in the attacks, but not two at the same time, because the quick counter-attack is the weapon our opponents use against us. So, we work on this. In some areas, we are doing well; in others, we are not. In the Ukrainian Premier League, we seem to be at our most vulnerable.
UEFA.com: You demand your players to pass the ball into the attacking areas very quickly. In order to do that, you need centre backs who have a good first pass. Are you satisfied with this attribute in the current central defenders?
Olexandr Khatskevych: If we are talking about individuals, Yevhen Khacheridi maybe lacks a good first pass, but Vida Domagoj has it. Tamas Kadar has the ability to produce through-balls, good diagonal passes and balls in behind. Of course, these are the demands of modern football, a more dynamic style that most of the clubs and national teams play nowadays. Possession of the ball is fine, but you need to have very strong central midfielders who can keep hold of it. We build our game around the players that we have in the squad. We are trying to play this type of football.
UEFA.com: I have noticed Khacheridi’s progress, even in the national team he has a greater success rate starting attacks now, both with long and short passes. You can see how he’s working on this.
Olexandr Khatskevych: He has the ability and he’s working on it too. Sometimes he’s too cautious and wants to play safe. As a defender, he believes his main attributes are in defense and that he must be reliable at the back. As he says, “attacking is the others guys’ job.” Oleh Luzhnyi and I try to explain to him that modern football demands the central defenders have a good first pass, especially with such an emphasis on positional play. Actually he has a good pass, both short and long, but he does not always use them.
UEFA.com: Let’s talk about the attack now. How difficult is it to play without Andriy Yarmolenko?
Olexandr Khatskevych: Individually, Andriy is a very strong player. The game is made up of separate moments and he is very effective in attack, both technically and intellectually. He used to take a lot of responsibility on himself and he was not afraid of making mistakes or having that weight upon his shoulders. He may or may not score, but he had the ability. And we still haven’t been able to replace him.
UEFA.com: People are looking at Viktor Tsyhankov to step into his shoes, how do you rate the potential of this player, who is believed to be Dynamo’s best young hope?
Olexandr Khatskevych: In fact, he is a very interesting footballer. He is good technically, he’s got pace, he understands the game well; he’s a very clever player. It’s a pleasure to work with such footballers. But at such an age, we need some patience, we need to wait a bit. He has great potential and, first of all, I hope he stays fit and keeps believing in himself. If he believes in himself and keeps working as he is now, he will develop into a very good footballer. Playing with two strikers, you don’t often use inverted wingers. You’ve switched [Derlis] Gonzalez to the right wing - was this the reason for his change of position or is it due to his individual attributes?
UEFA.com: Playing with two strikers, you don’t often use inverted wingers. You’ve switched [Derlis] Gonzalez to the right wing - was this the reason for his change of position or is it due to his individual attributes?
Olexandr Khatskevych: Well, after every game we get information on every footballer’s effectiveness. I am not talking about functional data now: how many kilometers he ran or the number of fast sprints. Rather, I am purely considering individual qualities and his work on the ball. After analysing the games where he played on the left, we noticed he rarely got the ball into the penalty box. He comes inside, but he maybe he doesn’t have great accuracy after moving inside from the left wing or he doesn’t make dangerous passes into the box. He doesn’t have this in his locker. We’ve watched his games for the national team and there he plays right winger; he is quite effective there. Having played the last three games on the right wing, his individual statistics say he’s more effective on the right wing.
UEFA.com: Dynamo have four good centre forwards. Plus, you have [Denys] Harmash, who can play as a deep-lying forward. How difficult is it to manage this group of players, keeping them motivated and managing the psychological conditions of those who play less often?
Olexandr Khatskevych: Well, we play quite a lot of games. Starting from 15 July this year, we have played three games a week almost all the time: Sunday, Thursday, Sunday. In this respect, we try to rotate the combination of attacking players. This rotation is very good for us, because we have some good players for these positions and all of them get enough time on the pitch. So, I think that from a psychological point of view, these footballers get enough playing time. The most important thing for us is their effectiveness. And the competition which exists in this area of the pitch completely suits us now.
UEFA.com: It’s hard to argue that [Dieumerci] Mbokani is best forward in the team right now. Previous coaches had some complaints about him, regarding his work without the ball and in defence. How satisfied are you with him in these aspects of the game?
Olexandr Khatskevych: Well, he does quite a lot for the team when we defend. When he joined us for pre-season in Austria, our first conversation lasted for five minutes. I told him if he fulfills my requirements in attack and does his job in defense, without the ball, he would play. Of course, he said that his task as a forward was to score. I agreed, but said that maybe in his previous teams under different coaches this was the only requirement, but here I have added a few more too. First of all, defending as soon as we lose the ball, creating obstacles for the defenders, not letting them switch from the defense to attack. It was difficult at first, but step by step he started doing it. And this was down to his hard work at the training camp. He did everything the team was expected to do. Before that I talked with Rebrov, when I was working with the U-21 team, and when Blokhin was coach of the first team. I saw how Mbokani trained. Now, at this stage, there are no complaints about him regarding any aspect of the training process. And all of this is reflected in his play.
UEFA.com: Among the four forwards you have in the team, is it fair to say that [Junior] Moraes is unique, in terms of the way he plays and his range of ability? Does he stand out in the squad?
Olexandr Khatskevych: His attitude is just amazing, both in training and in games. This is a guy who doesn’t want to lose in training sessions, let alone games. I buy into this totally. Sometimes, I even tell him that he does too much, but I just can’t resist admiring his attitude to… to everything, from everyday life to matches.
UEFA.com: We saw a lot of players raised at the club in training today, young players like [Mykola] Shaparenko, [Vitaliy] Mykolenko, who has already played for the first XI, [Bohdan] Lednev as well. Who is closest to breaking into the first team from the youth team?
Olexandr Khatskevych: Well, we have a large group of young players training with us, especially when our players go on international duty. We see our young players every day, we get information from the youth team coach. To pick out some individuals, well, I’ll put it like this. We’ve been training for a week. For two days, they were perfect, but on the third, it was completely different. Of course, they are young, emotional, with a lot of desire, but we need time. Step by step, we’ll bring them closer to the first team during league games. We need to give them some time. They need to show their work in training first. And they are doing a good job. What we need more is a bit more quality and thought on the football pitch.
UEFA.com: You probably keep an eye not only on the guys at the club, but also those Dynamo players who plays for other teams at the moment. Is there some who might get his chance to play for the first team in the near future?
Olexandr Khatskevych: Of course, we keep tabs on the guys who are on loan at the moment, including [Olexandr] Tymchyk and [Bohdan] Mykhailychenko, who were with us in pre-season. They are getting enough playing time in the [Ukrainian] Premier League. Well, this is the job of Oleh Luzhnyi, as he is responsible for the defenders, so he watches them. I am more concentrated on the midfield and attacking players. Well, if you are driving at Olexandr Andriyevskyi, I remember him from when I worked in the reserve team. I know he is a decent footballer, he has quite a lot of good qualities and he’s showing this now. But every player needs time. I hope he keeps playing at the level he’s showing on loan in Zorya [Luhansk] and doesn’t stop in his progress. I hope he demands more of himself because he can do that. He is one of those intellectual footballers, who can think on the football pitch. Maybe he moves less, but he thinks more. If he improves in terms of output, he can become quite a good footballer too. So, regarding our players who are on loan, we also receive their statistics and data after every game and we observe their effectiveness too.
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