Oleksandr Petrakov: “I was satisfied with the nature of my wards”

29.09.2018 12:31

Photo by Pavlo Kubanov

The head coach of the U-16 U-XNUMX national team Alexander Petrakov summed up the results with the youngest team.

Two matches with Belgium (0:2, 2:0) Ukraine's youth team (football players not older than 2003 year of birth) completed the short-term training camp. About how he went, the official site of the FFU told the head coach of blue and yellow Alexander Petrakov.

— Oleksandr Vasilyevich, how would you rate your team's game against the Belgians?

- First of all, I was satisfied with the character of my wards. We will stick to our style. The main thing is that the players are fully trained on the field, and skill will come.

— In fact, you only met the players. What about guys?

- Some performers do not reach such a level yet, so we will continue to select, as they say, look for talent. But mostly I was satisfied with the attitude of the guys to work. I am glad that the players want to understand what they are being told. The next day after losing the first match with the Belgians, we had a two-hour training session, during which we practically did not do game exercises, but focused on tactics and standard positions. And, as it turned out, our work was not in vain, in the second match the national team of Ukraine won.

— What is the difficulty of starting work with 15-16-year-old boys?

- The coach, in my example, is not easy to rebuild psychologically. The players of the national team, which you lead for the fourth year, play in the Premier League, Europa League, Champions League. The U-20 World Cup is ahead - I'm already thinking about it. And here you need to abruptly switch to these guys who can do almost nothing. It is necessary to go down again. This transition is very difficult.

— What are the upcoming plans of the U-16 national team?

- On October 20 we are going, and on the 22nd we are flying to two friendly matches to Italy. We also plan to play two sparring matches against Turkey on November 6 and 8, which, however, have not yet been confirmed.