Friendly match. Ukraine - Serbia. Oleksiy Mykhaylichenko's pre-match press conference

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On Monday Ukraine national team had an open training session at the training grounds in Koncha-Zaspa. The team head coach Oleksiy Mykhaylichenko answered the journalists’ questions.

- First of all I want to note that all players have come in time but, unfortunately, Artem Kravets, Oleksandr Shovkovskiy and Ruslan Rotan will not be able to play because of injuries. Because of that we have also called up Artem Milevskiy.

We have little time to prepare for the match against Serbia. We’ll have one session after the press conference and another training and theory session tomorrow.

As for the players, they are in great mood. Of course, many of them are physically and psychologically tired to various extents. Some of them won and some lost during this weekend but now we all must unite to defend the honor of our country. I hope we will be able to prepare for the match during these two days.

Unlike the Cyprus game, now we have Voronin and Shevchenko who recovered from their injuries. Of course there will be changes in the lineup. I only want them not to be too dramatic. Unlike club coaches, we don’t have much time to prepare. It is impossible to prepare the team in a week or two before the start of an official competition. A club coach has a week to prepare his team for a single match while we have to get them ready for the complete qualifying cycle during five or six friendly games. We have to spread this weekly cycle over nine months.

- Who will replace injured Oleksandr Shovkovskiy?

- I forgot to say that we have called up Vyacheslav Kernozenko.

- Of all U-21 team players that you coached only Oleh Dopilka got an invitation to the first team. Don’t you have confidence in other players?

- We called such young players as Dopilka, Milevskiy, Chyhrynskiy, Shust…

- I mean players from the most recent U-21 lineup, like Lyopa.

- Can you name such youngsters who play in the starting eleven in their clubs?

- But Milevskiy also doesn’t play from the start in Dynamo.

- Milevskiy is much older than those players that you named. Competition among Dynamo forwards is high but Artem is usually able to improve the team’s play when coming in from the bench. We wanted to test Kravets but unfortunately he was injured. But Denys Holaydo got his chance to prove his worthiness.

- Have you considered calling up Homenyuk who scored twice against Shakhtar?

- I expected this question. Yes, there are grounds for calling him up to the national team. Perhaps we will check him in the upcoming matches against Holland and Sweden. We watched him before the Shakhtar match too and he looked good. He is a skilful forward but it is important that he continues to improve his ability.

- What can you say about your next opponent, Serbia?

- I’d love to tell you something but I have only theoretical information. They have new head coach who changes the lineup frequently. Actually they are in the middle of the same process as we are. Frankly, I have minimal information about our opponents.

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