After the match against “Zomin”, head coach of “Lokomotiv” Denis Korostichenko expressed his opinion.
– Hello everyone. First of all, I would like to congratulate everyone, members of the club and our fans on the victory. I would like to thank the fans who support us, although there are not many of them. We heard their voices throughout the game, they called us forward. It was nice. What can I say about the game. We played with great initiative in both sections. We had many opportunities, like the first game of the championship. We rushed to score a quick goal. There were situations for this, we created them. We scored only one goal in the first half. We spoke to the lads at halftime and it looked like they were full of energy and taking advantage of their opportunities. In fact, we could have scored more goals. In general, the game was ours, we controlled it completely, we scored goals from our situations. The opponent did not create any serious situations. We tried, it was difficult for the opponents. We looked a little better than “Zomin”.
– Did you expect “Zomin” team to play with “Bus” like last year?
– First of all, I should say that we were able to find a video of only one game of “Zomin”. Because of this, there was almost no idea how they would play. If I’m not mistaken, they played only two games in the First League and one game in the Cup. The video of that game wasn’t very good either. In the game we saw, they played like today, open, attacking and calm football. I don’t see the point of coming from the First League to the “Lokomotiv” field and putting a “bus” in the Cup. Why is that? They don’t have a goal, for example, they don’t think about winning the Cup or getting out of the group. In addition, they took a place in the group of teams such as “Lokomotiv”, “Dinamo” and “Kyzilqum”. Therefore, I think that they had no task to beat Lokomotiv. For example, I don’t even know in what conditions they arrived to the game – the day before the game or the game right from Zomin… In my opinion, the “bus” did not help them either. Another thing is that most coaches don’t want to put a “bus” before the game, they want to play football, fight and attack.
– After the difficult match against “Dynamo” in the Pro-League, another important match against “Koqon-1912” awaits. For example, how much does having a Cup game in the middle help the team?
– What would happen if we played with “Kyzilkum” instead of “Zomin”?! How useful is a 4-0 win between two crucial games, you ask. If we were to play with “Kyzilkum” now, it would be three difficult games in a row. The calendar plays an important role here. Anyway, we are playing with such teams. The schedule was as follows: a match against “Dynamo”, then the Cup and then “Kokhan-1912”. In general, it’s normal: I don’t see any serious difficulties. There is a 4-day rest period before the match against “Kokon-1912”. We played a difficult match against “Dynamo”. From the point of view of the circumstances, we could have won that match as well. The game in the cup provides strength and positive emotions to the boys. We will analyze the game and see what is similar and what is not. We also looked at how “Kokhan-1912” played. We will try to win there. This game should help us.
– Was it possible to rotate the composition? In today’s game, 90 percent of the team that played against “Dynamo” played. Or is it due to the low number of games this season?
– We thought about this before the game. We did not know how the opponent would play. Before the match, we had no idea that we would easily win 5-0 and let these young people down. What if we completely change the lineup and don’t win today? This is the first match in the Cup. We didn’t want to risk 3 points, our only home game in this tournament. There was a change in the composition: we made small changes in the offensive line. Manuchehr Safarov, who received a red card in the last match, was replaced by Sanjar Kadirkulov. We tried to preserve the basis of the main content through changes. For example, Boyan Naydenov needs more game practice. In the second half, the players played for 30-35 minutes. Marat Bikmayev scored, I congratulate him on his beautiful goal. I would like him to score many goals and help the team in the upcoming matches.