To recall when Ukraine’s national soccer team last topped its qualification group’s list, this writer had to strain his brains and even look up some reference sources. It turned out that our side were on top as long ago as in 1998, trying to qualify for Euro-2000. Yet our players gave way France, the then world champions. Then we had to wait for four long years to see our team as some kind of a leader.
AROUND UKRAYINA
Needless to say, a national team match is quite an event for Lviv. This guarantees, as we have seen before, packed grandstands of the Ukrayina stadium and chanting the anthem in thirty thousand voices. Lviv residents showed that they were fully prepared for the national team’s latest visit. While during the previous visit the stadium was cordoned off a block away three hours before the kickoff, this time all boiled down to an ordinary VIP motorcade down the Old City’s narrow streets. There were no ticket offices as such, either — it remained a mystery how the audience managed to get into the stadium. What really left a lasting impression was the spectators’ absolute confidence that our team will win. All were going to celebrate a victory — nothing less.
A few words about the under-21 team. With coach Mykhailychenko at the head, the squad are going from strength to strength. While in the Kyiv game versus Greece the referee- “gifted” penalty shot was our team’s only victorious gain, in Chervonohrad the junior Ukrainians had scored five goals before the referee again made a “present.” Having beaten Georgia’s under-21 team 6:0, our players are now topping their European qualification group with nine points under the belt.
GEORGIANS NEVER “COOLED DOWN”
Although the outside temperature of plus five Celsius and a wet pitch were supposed to quench the Georgian side’s bellicose ardor, the result was just the opposite. The team, coached by the Frenchman Giresse and consisting of players who chiefly play outside Georgia, seized initiative in the very first minutes and began to attack Shovkovsky’s goal area.
This was dangerous because, by contrast to the two previous Lviv matches against Armenia, there was not even a whiff of easiness on the pitch. Dzhamarauli, Iashvili, Arveladze, Asatiani and Kobiashvili totally captured the mid-field, leaving the Ukrainians the only option of pushing the ball forward in the hope that Shevchenko or Bielik, who was playing his second match this year for the first-string team, will pick it up.
No one knows what this would have resulted in hadn’t it been for the corner shot that the referee unexpectedly awarded after Shevchenko’s lateral pass in the 12th minute of the game. When Voronin struck, Fedorov lunged forward and passed the ball to Bielik near the outer post, who opened the score — 1:0!
The spectators were looking forward to new attacks and a shower of goals scored. Instead, they saw a collision-course game, in which the visitors looked better. Asatiani missed a good chance to score when he, assisted by the defense wall, and Shovkovsky went eyeball to eyeball. Our goalie made a save. There were also other dangerous moments for our side. As to the forwards Bielik, Shevchenko, and Voronin, they were trying in vain to launch attacks. Georgian fullbacks were good at breaking up our attacking waves.
In an attempt to change the situation, coach Blokhin substituted Voronin in the last minutes of the first half. This obviously offended the latter, but the Georgians were attacking too eagerly for anyone to notice this. The masterly Caucasians handled the ball almost throughout the second half, leaving our fullbacks nonplused. Sometimes our side helped their opponents. For example, the substitute Zakarliuka could not overcome agitation for a solid ten minutes, always ceding the ball to the Georgians.
Surprised at this kind of performance, the grandstands began to chant “Sheep!”, which in Lviv means a negative appraisal of their team, but a second goal was in the pipeline. Nesmachny passed the ball on to the Devadze-guarded goal area, where Husin skillfully intercepted the “instrument of the game” and kicked it on to Shevchenko. The latter made a sure shot, which set the record straight much to the audience’s pleasure: a victorious score of 2:0 and a goal struck by Shevchenko himself.
Yet the Georgians went on attacking, and only after the final whistle could our coach Blokhin calm down.
IF THIS IS A “TEAM IN THE MAKING,” WHAT IS COMING NEXT?
After the Ukrainians won and thus came on top of the group, Blokhin asked journalists to tone down criticism of his team. In his view, the team does not yet exist — it is still in the making. The coach is right. The Ukrainian team, by contrast with their Georgian counterpart, has not yet shown a proper style but has gained some points owing chiefly to their willpower and luck. Yet it is difficult to agree with Blokhin over his request to ease criticism.
Do we have to exult over the group leadership? Do we have to declare our team the strongest and fit to play in the World Cup finals? For it is wrong to claim so. We so far see a group of players who are eager to wear national team jerseys. The boys are clearly exerting themselves and working their fingers to the bone, so to speak. Yet Blokhin’s team only occasionally shows good soccer. By force of tradition, we know very well how to ruin until we encounter an opponent that will outplay us. Several combinations of the Georgian squad, when our fullbacks were left helpless and only Shovkovsky’s lucky stars saved the situation, was a vivid demonstration of this.
It is difficult to hope for serious and stable results unless the players show a well-thought-out game in the mid-field. We can still “wrest” some more points “by force.” And then? By all accounts, the national team has scrapped the experiment with Dnipro which tried to play a combinational soccer. Kyiv’s and Donetsk’s “workmen” have ousted the “artists” of Dnipropetrovsk. But they can only play by counterattacking. What will the team do if it fails to score a “fast” goal and the opponents’ goalkeeper “fails” to push the ball into his own net?
It is the Blokhin-led council of coaches that must tackle these problems. The next away game vs. Turkey is just a month away — this will be the first test of our long-awaited group leadership.
