The “white-blues” player asked the fans for forgiveness.
Dynamo Kyiv defender Alexander Karavaev commented on the crushing defeatfrom Hungarian “Ferencvaros” in the match of the fourth round of the main stage of the Europa League of the 2024/25 season.
The match at the Volksparkstadion arena in Hamburg, Germany, ended with a score of 0:4. It should be noted that from the 17th minute, the “white-blues” played with a minority due to the removal of defender Vladislav Dubinchak.
“Dubinchak's red card? I think it was an accident, because he was fighting outside the field and stepped on his opponent's foot. The same thing happened to Bragaru in the first match against Lazio, when he also took the ball and accidentally stepped on his foot… But the expulsion, on the contrary, united us, we played very well in the first half. We had many chances, including me, the crossbars were there… We just didn't convert our chances. And we were playing with ten men. We could have played the same in the second half, but, frankly, I didn't recognize the team after the break. They just gave up… We'll talk, because there is no excuse for such a game.
In principle, everyone endured, ran forward even with ten men. But it all comes from the head, everyone must sort themselves out and understand that even if we play with ten men, we still can't play anyhow and we need to stick to our agreements, the game plan. Yes, it's a little harder, since we have one less player, but we need to play completely differently, give ourselves on the field.
We didn't score, although the game was going well even with the score 0:0, we could have scored in the second half. But there were some unfortunate goals, childish mistakes… At this level, any team punishes for mistakes.
I sincerely apologize to our fans, to everyone who supports us. I understand that it is difficult for everyone… I am sure that we will play differently. This will be a good lesson for us, we must go through it, and only through the next games should we show that we have learned from this lesson and play completely differently,” Karavaev said on the broadcaster after the match.
The defeat from Ferencvaros was the fourth in a row for the Kiev team in the current Europa League. Before that, Dynamo suffered a crushing defeat to Lazio (0:3), lost to Hoffenheim (0:2) and suffered a defeat to Roma (0:1) of Ukrainian forward Artem Dovbyk.
After four rounds, Dynamo occupies the last, 36th place in the overall standings of the main round of the Europa League, without scoring a single point. The difference in goals scored and conceded is 0:10.
Despite the disastrous results, Dynamo still has a chance to reach the Europa League playoffs. Shovkovskiy's team still has four matches ahead in the main stage: against the Czech Viktoria Plzen (November 28), the Spanish Real Sociedad (December 12), the Turkish Galatasaray (January 21) and the Latvian RFS (January 30).
The eight best teams in the main stage of the Europa League will reach the 1/8 finals. The clubs that take places from 9th to 24th in the overall standings will play paired play-off matches for a place in the 1/8 finals. The rest will finish their performance in European competitions.
