Water polo club Dynamo Lviv played the group stage in Romania and advanced from first place in Group B.

“We have the result, we have the victory. This is despite the fact that the last stage of preparation for the competition was disrupted, and we could not train as usual due to a broken pool. It’s good that we had two training sessions upon arrival at the tournament. In the games we practiced 6v6, positional attack, counterattack. We practiced it in combat conditions, because the pool at home is of a non-standard size. In the game against Modri Drachi, we practiced defense with the help of a post, as they have a very powerful center forward. We were able to do this, so we were able to reliably work on defense and score our goals.

As for the Romanians, they are a young team, they are more mobile, young and light, and because of that, we were a little under-adjusted to the game and made a lot of mistakes, missed counterattacks, and that’s why the game was nervous. We won by three goals, but it should have been a different result.

We were traveling with our main team, only Chopyk, Paliy and Yarema Oleksandr were absent. We left them at home, but we took one of the best players of the Uzhhorod team, Artem Havrylenko, with us to watch him in action. In many ways, the young players have performed well, and this is a good experience for them. They began to listen, to change their style of play, which they had before. We succeeded in many moments and were able to use them effectively. As for the experienced players, Alekseev showed himself well as a team leader and scored the necessary goals, and the goalkeepers played well.

The next tour for our team will take place in Stockholm on March 21–23. There we will play against teams from Vilnius and Stockholm. Two teams from this subgroup will advance,” said Oleksiy Shvedov, head coach of Water polo club Dynamo Lviv.

“The first match against Czech Comet Brno started a little bit messy. In the first period, it was especially evident that we hadn’t had a game practice for a long time, about two months. They started with an equal score, but still brought the game to a logical conclusion with a confident victory.

The second match against Modri Drači Košice was probably the best of the three. We fully controlled the course of the game, followed the coach’s instructions as much as possible and exploited the opponent’s weaknesses. And we scored most of our goals from counterattacks.

The third match against Crisul Oradea was the most tumultuous and unpleasant, because, believing in ourselves, seeing that the team was quite young, having started to score in the first two periods, we relaxed and the third and fourth periods were already controlled by the Romanian opponents. A big failure to execute the setup led to the score being reduced to three goals at the end of the match and we lost our advantage that we had gained in the first half,” analyzes Dynamo captain Oleksandr Dyadyura.

“Of course, we are all satisfied with the result: three games and maximum points. Despite the good games, in the first round of the Northern League, I think all the players, including me, have something to work on and correct mistakes, including tactical ones. The size of the pool also had an impact on our game, it was much narrower than it should have been, and this is another specificity of the game. To summarize, we played more or less well, but there is still work to be done,” said Konstantin Alekseev, a player of Water polo club Dynamo Lviv.

“I am pleased with the result of Water polo club Dynamo Lviv in the first round of the Northern League. All the opponents were within our power, and it was noticeable in the matches we saw. I am also pleased with the fact that the coaches give playing time to young players. Six young water polo players got a chance to prove themselves in matches at once. Dynamo’s goals are ambitious: to win the Northern League or at least be among the winners. The guys have a lot of work ahead of them, so I wish them success and strength in the next rounds,” summarized Oleksandr Svishchov, President of the Water Polo Federation of Ukraine.