Finally we’ve got it. A new team, new players, and, let’s be honest, ambiguous impressions. I’d like to talk about these impressions. Analyzing a team’s debut game, especially if it is like the last one, is rather difficult, and, frankly, is actually almost useless. Because for any argument one can get a logical answer: “Well, there is plenty of time, it’s still two years till the Euro!” Most likely, the impressions are ambiguous. We might have wanted to see the game of our lightly renewed team with a slightly weaker competitor.
But that hardly was to the extent that before the middle of the first time is was clear who would be the winner. This is good, of course, but let’s be realists: during the Euro we will hardly have such competitors as Lithuania. The only plus in this is the positive result in the debut match under the guidance of the new coach – Myron Markevych (by the way, out of 13 coaches none managed to win the first match, except for legendary Valerii Lobanovsky).
Perhaps the management of our federation became superstitious and chose such a competitor for Markevych being guided by this fact, who knows?
Regarding the composition, there are also a few comments. Or just one, to be more precise: besides young Konoplianka and the not-so-young Horianinov we’d like to see more newcomers from the very first minutes. Hopefully, Markevych will continue searching and will repeatedly shuffle the squad, in order to find new players and say goodbye to old ones. It is unlikely that this arrangement will ever be the same.
Otherwise the debut went quite well. Markevych pleased local audience with a decent number of Metalist players. On May 29, I’m sure, he will please the Lviv audience the same way, too. Myron Markevych should have noticed mistakes and problems. Actually, matches like that – friendly and long before official tournaments – are necessary to find weak points. Scoring and winning is secondary. For the moment.
Well, we’ll see how the new coach will lead the national team to the Euro-2012. Everybody now has things to think about. In Lviv we’ll see the second series of the debut – most likely featuring Oshchypko, Fedetsky and Khudobiak.
The goals: 1:0 — Aliyev (10), 2:0 — Aliyev (17), 3:0 — Shevchenko (68), the penalty, 4:0 — Shevchenko (77).
