Darren McGregor has said he was “very proud” of his team’s performance despite their narrow defeat across their two legs against Dynamo Kyiv in the UEFA Youth League.
Dynamo Kyiv went into the second leg at Easter Road with a slim one-goal lead after their 1-0 victory in Poland a fortnight ago.
This lead was cancelled out by a brilliant curling effort from range from Dean Cleland, as he put Hibs ahead on the night to level the tie overall.
However, this lead lasted just three minutes, as Kyrylo Osypenko calmly slotted the ball past Ryan Mallon to equalise for the Ukrainian side on the night and, ultimately, sent Kyiv through to the next round of the UEFA Youth League.
After the final whistle McGregor told HibsTV his lads “stood up to the task superbly” against a strong, physical unit in Dynamo Kyiv.
McGregor said, “I am very proud of the boys’ performance. We knew it was going to be a difficult game against an older, experienced team with some first-team players playing in it. I thought the lads stood up to them and up to the task superbly well.
“They stuck to the game plan. We knew the strengths that they possessed, and I thought we dealt with them over the 90 minutes relatively well.
“The only bugbear, I would say, is you’re at your most vulnerable after scoring a goal, and that proved the case tonight.
“Dean strikes the ball superbly well, and all week in training he was hitting the ball like that, and you take the lead, you’re in a commanding position, and then we concede three, four minutes after it. It just takes the steam out of the game a little bit.”
He added, “I said to them in there, I am very, very proud that we won the league last season. We’ve had great experiences in Kosovo and in Poland. So they should use these experiences playing on a fabulous pitch [at Easter Road].
“I was speaking to the ref before the game, and he’s saying that this is the best stadium he’s refereed at in an academy fixture. So that’s testament to the powers that be allowing us to do this and use it as a motivating factor to actually go and work hard and be the best version of ourselves so that this happens all the time.”
Hibs went into the second leg with a starting eleven with an average age of under 17 years old, against a Dynamo Kyiv side that included first-team players.
“I’ve looked at quite a lot of Youth League games, and there are very, very few teams that play 2009s,” the Hibs U19’s Head Coach commented, “And we had two on the park tonight, two young Scottish players that came in at the last minute because we got a couple of injuries.
“I thought they were a credit to themselves playing against the lads that were three years older than them, and they acquitted themselves very, very well.
“I thought it was a really good game of football and one that the lads can feel a wee bit aggrieved at that we never actually progressed into the next round.”
Hibs European journey has seen them play in front of four-digit crowds at Easter Road twice, including trips to Kosovo and Poland, and McGregor described the experience as “superb” for his team but also an “excellent” experience for him in his first steps as a coach.
He told HibsTV, “It’s been superb. I mean, especially because I’m just in the first steps of being a coach, and this has been an excellent experience for me.
“In terms of the lads, again, I think it will plant the seed to work harder, and this should be their inspiration moving forward: for this to be a regular occurrence, not just a one-off.
“The lads are normally used to maybe 40 or 50 people coming to watch them, so to have thousands come in in a stadium like this, again, it should be the inspiration and the motivating factor to actually be a professional football player because it’s not an easy job to do.
“You need to come in and be the best version of yourself every single day, and I believe these lads do. Time will tell whether or not they’re good enough to take that jump.”
The goal now for the Under-19 squad will be to attempt to break into David Grey’s first team, and McGregor has described that as the “main aim” going forward.
“Obviously, we’d like to get lads into the first team. We know it’s a very difficult task. That’s the main aim, if you like. If we can win the league again, it’ll be, again, very difficult, but we’ll give it a go.
“I think you want to win games of football. The closer the lads get to the first team, the more it is about winning.
“It’s about development as well, but I think if we can win games of football and you can get this as a by-product of that and the experiences you gain from that, that’ll only stand them in good stead moving forward in their career.”
