Our team overcame the traditionally hard Armenian barrier only with great difficulty. Problems in defending the center and the absence of constructive players there explains the great number of mistakes, which made it possible for the modest Armenians to expect victory. The Ukrainians had a tendency to hold onto the ball too long, passing when it was in play even from far from the tribune. The desire to play well and not make mistakes made the play of our halfbacks easy to anticipate, and the tendency of Rebrov and Shevchenko to keep the ball to themselves brought disorder to a team to which they were far from strangers. Since neither Tymoshchuk, Husyn, nor Dmytrulin showed virtuosity in either passing of dribbling but were useful for their strength and speed, our attacks failed.
“Whoever gets in our way helps us,” said the hero played by Armenian actor Mkrtchan in an unforgettable cinematic comedy about a captive from the Caucasus. The points won by the Armenians — first one goal, then another — broke the sons of Cilicia’s game. Shocked by their sudden unexpected success, the hosts simply did not know how to capitalize on their sudden wealth. The Armenian defenders then literally gave the Ukrainians two goals as a gift, after which their trainer Sukiasian attempted to score the winning goal but ran into a model counterattack which finally made the game look like the unforgettable games of Dynamo vs. Barcelona, Arsenal, and Bayern when precise passes punched holes in the rivals’ defense in the stadiums of Madrid, Turin, London, Lance, Eindhoven, and again Barcelona. The trio of Rebrov, Vorobei, and Shevchenko, literally aflame with brilliance lit up the untutored mess of the rest of the game, bringing us the thrill of victory and hope that in the future we will have cause for other emotions.
We will never again see on the pitch the Dynamo we remember. But if our team could play like that Dynamo, the Armenians staged a nearly half hour attack on our goal, sending Shovkovsky two or three balls which, however, did not make it past our goalkeeper. The Ukrainian’s defense consisted in diagonal passes and threatening attempts coming not from Rivaldo or Raul, not Zidan or Bergkampf but from unknown Armenians whose surnames we forget after the match just like we forgot those of the Albanians with whom we suffered four years ago. Maybe this is for the best. Our defenders and goalkeeper saw that they could be outplayed by far from Europe’s best teams, and this fact should encourage them to improve their play and prevent them from resting on their laurels. The skill to send the ball to the grandstands and to run for counterattacks will be useful as early as Wednesday during our game with the Norwegians. And the hard three points which were won at the foot of Mount Ararat are even more valuable because our rivals will have to go to Yerevan and defeat the Armenians whom we already defeated. There is some hope that either the Poles, Belarusians, or Norwegians will lose points in Armenia. If all of them will, maybe we will have to fight for winning the group tournament precisely with the Armenians?
Luckily, the Yerevan game did not finish but only started the preliminary tournament for Ukraine. Even now it is clear that the intrigue in our group will be preserved up to the last round. And let the Moscow commentators make the same mistake every time calling the Ukrainian team Dynamo. If our national team plays as good as Dynamo did in Shevchenko’s times, then journalists can already start to fight for booking a seat on the plane going to the World Cup-2002 with the Ukrainian team aboard.
