“We need to look forward. Liverpool conceded 7 goals, Barcelona – 8 “

Shakhtar head coach Luis Castro He spoke about the defeat in the Champions League matchday 3 game against Borussia M (0: 6), as well as the opportunity to react quickly and prove his worth already in the next game with the Dynamo:

– There is a saying: “A good man among the sheep, but against the good man is like a sheep.” On Friday, Shakhtar did everything he wanted with Mariupol in the Ukraine league game, and today he did everything he wanted with Shakhtar. As a fan of the team with forty years of experience, today I am ashamed. And you?

– Yes, I fully understand and accept what you are saying now. We ourselves feel completely humiliated in today’s game. If you look at the first part, we didn’t have a single fault. There was not enough aggressiveness, there was nothing, we were never able to win, we were also completely powerless in our defensive process. The opponents went where they wanted, opened up zones, carried out attacks.

Basically, as we predicted, there were a lot of deep passes and serves down the flanks. However, we couldn’t undo any of this, and we couldn’t show any gameplay in the attack, either. There was no stability. If the first goal hurt us mentally, the second buried or drowned completely. After that, the team dropped their hands completely. We couldn’t show all that we could. Therefore, yes, I fully agree with your words.

– It seemed like the next break for training camps was perfect for Shakhtar: take a breath, forget about this defeat and return some experienced players to base. How do you think that?

– It hurts me because this defeat happened very unexpectedly. Basically this is the same line-up, the same team that played against Real Madrid and proved to be excellent both in attack and defense. This is practically the same line-up that played with Inter, there we are very valuable in defense. When something like this happens today, it leaves a dirty and terrible stain on our team. As I just said, the first and second balls made us give up completely, because nobody expected this to happen.

Now you are talking about a pause. Yes, a pause, but let’s not forget that we have 17 players in the national teams: Ukraine, Georgia, Israel, the Brazilian Olympic team. And before this break there will be a difficult game with the Dynamo. Then there will be no pause as we would like. But soccer taught me one thing: if negative things happen so suddenly, good things can happen just as quickly. We will go back to the level we played at. Yes, today the team is disappointed with that result, but in any case, we have to look ahead, fix something and improve.

– The question is not about substitutions, but directly about the game and structurally: what did you try to change when leaving the goal and in midfield after a failed start of the game, especially considering the pressure from Borussia?

– We had a very, very bad first half. In attack, our team practically did not exist and, in principle, also in defense. What did we want to add during the game? Any intensity. In the first half, we did not commit any fault, we did not create any difficulties for the rival, while Borussia constantly advanced and created chances in our goal. Throughout the fight, we wanted to fix this. And during the break.

I want to say one thing about replacements for you to remember. He could replace any player: this does not mean that those who left the field were guilty of anything. Not absolutely not. I just wanted to add a little energy to our team, to play with those players who did not have this heavy burden from the first half. A lot could have happened in the second half as well, so we decided to make only three changes during the break. Perhaps the rest would still be necessary. We tried to change something, make something the best possible for the team, but today, sadly, it didn’t work. You couldn’t play like we play today.

– It is generally accepted that the European Cups show the real level of the teams. Shakhtar pleasantly surprised us with a win over Real, but we were unpleasantly surprised today. Where is the actual level of Shakhtar?

– Unfortunately, this is happening, and not just with our team. We can look at Liverpool, who lost and conceded 7 goals, Barcelona in the quarterfinals – 8, Bayern Hoffenheim – 4 goals, PSG lost 6 points at the beginning of the season. In general, during a pandemic there is a lot of instability. We went from season to season in three days, there was absolutely no time to rest and recuperate. Everything is very unstable and strange at the moment, and the teams show it too. We are very surprised today.

It is clear that we play against a good team, against Borussia. But in the game we show today, 6 goals conceded is a fully deserved result. It was with such a voluminous score that today we were defeated. Very bad day for us. When this happens, many times you start to change the line-up, put one player or another, change something in your team, but in this case we continue with 90% of the same players that we play against Real Madrid and Inter. What happened surprised us a lot. But anyone has the right to be wrong, and today we made it. We hope to improve and not play like this again.

– Maybe the game with Dynamo was more important for Shakhtar and you had it in your head? Do you agree or refute this? How can you prepare your team for the Dynamo after such a defeat?

– In those moments, we must understand that life goes on. Something went wrong for everyone, everyone went through difficult situations, including you. Life doesn’t end there: not for the teams, not for me, not for Shakhtar, not for you. Everything always advances. It is very important to react as quickly as possible and move towards our goal. Now it would be easy to sit down after the win and talk about how good everything is. But the hardest part is reacting after stumbling and moving on. We have this opportunity. Our team will and will do it in the next game.

Unfortunately, this is not the first nor the last time this has happened, there will always be bad times. Life is made up of black and white stripes. Now everything can be corrected with daily work: mental, physical, tactical and technical. We are the same team that was in the semi-finals of the Europa League this year. We are the same team that finished the last championship with a 23-point advantage from second place. We are the same team that played against Real Madrid and Inter. Today is such a day, but everyone stumbles. Okay, it will be important to improve, solve everything and move on.