Pusic: I want Shakhtar to play with courage against Barca

Press conference of head coach of Shakhtar Marino Pusic before the game against Barcelona:

– It is the first time that you travel with the team for a home game that is held away. What are your impressions?
– It is a big journey. You cannot call it a home game because we travelled for several hours to reach our destination. It requires some adaptation of course and to be strong in your mind – and that is what I see in my squad. We are happy to be here, we have some time for a short training session to be ready for tomorrow. But, to be honest, it is, of course, not perfect when you have to travel for such long periods. It is my first experience, or even the second one, because we were travelling back after the match against Barcelona. But this is the first experience with such a game ahead – it is special one. But we are not here to complain about it, we came here to compete. So that is it. We are not here to complain about the long trips or losing a lot of time or not getting extra training or something like that. We are not complaining, we came here to compete and play this match.

– You took the team that lost their home in Donetsk nine years ago. You did not play there. How do you feel about leading a team without their home stadium and fans?
– If this was the only problem for us... Unfortunately, there is a war, and that is the most important part. Hopefully, it will end as soon as possible. And of course, these conditions make us not play matches at home, but we have to travel a lot, as I said already. And it is not easy. But in this club I feel the character, the fighting spirit, the organisation, I see people who work hard and that they are like a family for each other, they support each other in these difficult circumstances to make the best of this situation. And I am very impressed with that, it is not easy, but I am impressed with this attitude overall.

– Greetings from the Netherlands! How was your transition from Feyenoord to Shakhtar? How was your experience and what problems do you encounter now?
– Everything happens pretty fast, I have to adapt very fast, and I do it. I am not the guy who is focusing on problems, I am always thinking about solutions and possibilities, this gives me energy and focus on the job I took. And that is it, actually. I never think about the problems, because there are a lot of them, but if you focus on the things as they are, on the players with great personalities, it gives you focus and energy. And I also want to give that energy to the team. We do not talk about problems.

– How are your Ukrainian language skills?
– I understand about 30 percent, I can read and I will speak even better – give me half a year and we will speak in Ukrainian next time.

– Shakhtar hired the Dutch coach in the summer, they did not play that well with him. Is the Dutch school the new style of Shakhtar?
– I think that in football in general, globally, we can no longer give the names to the schools. This school is famous for attacking way of playing. I think it is always a personal choice of the coach, because we are all different, and obviously this is the main part: attacking vision of the game, but also the development of young players, which is important. I think that in general, it applies to all of us, everybody has their own vision of the game and that kind of stuff. It is not just a part of the country, or exists only within the country, it is general. I like to play attacking football, I like to press high and work hard with the team, so we try to develop the team and individual players as well. Of course I have to say that I am influenced by this school, that is obvious, but there are personal differences.

– It is known from renowned sources that you analyse the next opponents in great detail, including watching a lot of their matches. How many Barcelona matches did you watch before tomorrow’s game? And what can help Shakhtar to get a positive result?
– A lot of travelling contributes to this: I have enough time on the bus or on the plane to watch a lot of games. But in general, I watch a lot of them. It is how I work and how I try to prepare my team. Like every team, we know the strength of Barcelona – it is an amazing club. For me, one of the best in Europe. It is always a big challenge to play against such a team. We faced them a week ago, we felt their strength, but also their weaknesses, so it is up to us to find them again, to try to use the analysis and to compete, like I said. It is a game for us, we do not have to lose anything. I just want my team to show up, to compete, to work again on our aspects and main principles of the game. We will see where it brings us in the end, but I want us to play with courage.

– What can you say about Bondarenko and Konoplia? Why will they not play?
– Like I said already, they are good, young, talented and intelligent players. They are very important to us and we would like to have them tomorrow, but they are not in the line-up, so we do not have to think about it. I switch fast in such cases. If the players cannot play, you cannot change anything. I have to make up a plan with other players whom I trust fully, to think how to play the game without these two players. What can I say? They are young, promising, talented and intelligent, with a big future. Now we have a very tough schedule, but that is how it is. We are a big club, we want to compete at a certain level. The schedule is not easy, but we are here to compete. You do not have to put a lot of energy as a coach in this game, because the players themselves are very conscious about it, they understand the strength of the opponent, everyone wants to show themselves tomorrow, so we are looking forward to this game.

– You had your first match in Barcelona two weeks ago. Tomorrow we are going to see different Shakhtar, because you had time to work with the team. But we also cannot say that now is the best time for Barcelona: they lost El Clasico, did not play that well against Real Sociedad on Saturday. Do you think that now you have more chances to win?
– Every game always has its own energy. It is a new game. It is almost impossible to compare the match played two weeks ago with the one that we will play now. We had some time to work with each other. It was not a long period, of course, just a short week. We did not have a lot of training sessions and they were not that big, to be honest, but during the matches we worked on some principles that I would like to see tomorrow again. I do not really believe that certain team are not in the good shape at a certain moment, because every game is specific. Barcelona have a tremendous number of great players, they can make a lot of changes. But we are here to compete. I want to see some things we worked on during training sessions. Let’s see how it is going to work. Any team can lose a Clasico, it is always a 50/50 game. I would not say that they are having a difficult period. You can play a draw in a difficult away game. They continue to compete for the championship title and are currently third. I know that they are a very good team. It does not influence my opinion.