Patrick van Leeuwen: We didn't maintain the discipline we had in the first half

The head coach of Kryvyi Rih Kryvbas Patrick van Leeuwen commented on the home match of the 25th round of the UPL against Kyiv Dynamo - 5:6 on UPL TV.

- Mr. Patrick, today was just a crazy match. What was that? What madness?

- We planned to start more aggressively, to play a little differently than usual - with two strikers to create more one-on-one situations. I think we felt good in those situations. The ball reached Mendoza, and he scored four fantastic goals. This is the first half. We didn't play very good football, but we still delivered the ball to where we wanted - to Mendoza, and he finished four times fantastically.

- As for Mendoza, if we continue his topic. Aren't you afraid that after this match you have definitely lost him today? Because he was already in high demand, but after he scored against Dynamo, it will probably be almost impossible to keep him.

- I think that's why we play football and why we develop players like Mendoza. As we said, this is an opportunity to "sell" himself as a player in games against Dynamo, as well as to improve his statistics. I think he did that today - he "sold" himself by scoring four fantastic goals thanks to his technical skills. In addition, he brought a lot of energy to the team, showed a good game overall. These are the things that we, as a coaching staff and the team, help him develop in.

- A three-goal advantage after the first half... What went wrong? What happened in the second half?

- At halftime, we talked about starting all over again. It's not that at 4:1 it's over. We understood that with the wind against us, the opponent could do the same. Therefore, we had to play very carefully in defense, and I think that's where we made mistakes - we didn't maintain the discipline that we had in the first half.

- I saw the complaints about the last goal scored by Dynamo from your coaching staff regarding offside. Did you watch that episode?

- I think the referee was very arrogant, not going to VAR. There was an offside situation, and he should have at least looked. In addition, many difficult decisions were made not in our favor on the field: fouls in the first half, for example. I think the referee did a poor job today in relation to us.

Media of FC "Kryvbas" Kryvyi Rih