Bad start and completely different results: how the national team of Ukraine finished the qualifying tournaments after defeats in the opening matches – Government Courier

The national football team of Ukraine has many qualifying rounds at prestigious international tournaments. But the participation in the most international tournaments can be counted on the fingers of one hand: the quarter-finals of the 2006 World Cup, the “gifted” Euro-2012, the “record” for Fomenko’s favorites the European Championship in France, and this year’s Euro-2020, at what price was Besedin’s national team injured Ukraine made it to the 1/4 finals of the tournament.

The next stop is Germany-2024. But for our team, participation in the European Championship is already in question. Two well-defined group leaders and a 2-0 defeat in the first qualifying match against England at Wembley practically put our team in shackles. However, this is not the first time that the Ukrainian national team starts the qualifying round with a loss. Let’s remember what came out of this in previous times.

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Ukraine – Lithuania. Qualification of the European Championship-1996

September 1994. The children have just gone to school, and the Lithuanian national team has arrived in Kyiv to play a Euro qualifying match against the Ukrainian national team. For the “blue-yellow” it was also the “first bell” – before the match with Lithuania. Before that, the Ukrainian national team played only friendly matches. 20 thousand spectators came to see how the native football team takes its first steps at the international level.

However, Oleg Bazilevich’s team had personnel problems even before the match. The fact is that the bosses of the champion of Ukraine – Dynamo Kyiv – did not let their players go to Bulgaria for a two-week training camp. In response to this, Bazilevich decided to limit himself to players from other teams. The principality of the head coach led the national team of Ukraine to the first official defeat in history. At the beginning of the second half, the Lithuanians scored 2 goals with an interval of 2 minutes and flew home with three points to their credit.

Next, the Ukrainian national team started a shootout with other group members: 4 wins, 4 losses and 1 draw after the second match with Lithuania. As a result – 4th place in the qualifying cycle for Euro-1996, Lithuania, Italy and Croatia finished higher.

Ukraine – Poland. Qualification of the World Championship-2002

Football fortune at the draw of the selection groups for the World Cup in Japan and South Korea returned to Ukraine in the direction it needed. In the quartet of the Ukrainian team, there was not a single top national team to which everyone immediately gave 1st place. Instead, there were Poland, Belarus, Norway, Wales and Armenia. It seemed that with Shevchenko and Rebrov up front, Husin and Tymoshchuk in the center, Luzhnyi in defense and Valery Lobanovskyi on the coaching bridge, the Ukrainian team would not have any problems with the opponents and would go to the World Cup quite calmly. “Our goal is 2002” is a slogan that old fans will remember with a touch of nostalgia.

However, already at the beginning of the selection cycle, the “blue-yellow” lost the “match for first place”. The meeting with the Polish national team at NSC Olimpiyskiy started briskly. Even before the 15th minute, the score on the scoreboard was 1:1: the mysterious Olisadebe and Shevchenko became the reason for the joy of the fans of their teams. But the Poles did not stop there, instead, the Ukrainian national team ran out of offensive arguments. At the end of the first half, after panic in the penalty area of ​​the Ukrainians, Olisadebe scored the second goal, and in the 54th minute, Radyslav Kaluzhny put an end to the match.

That defeat was the last for us in the group, but it and several further draws cost the Ukrainian national team 1st place. The second step led Lobanovskyi’s team to the German national team in the play-offs of selection, to which we lost a place at the World Championship in a two-match confrontation (1:1, 1:4).

Ukraine – Slovakia. Qualification of the European Championship-2016

Fate once again gave the Ukrainian national team the opportunity to enter the European Championship without any problems. However, the national team likes to keep their fans on their toes until the very end of the qualifying cycle. The qualification format for Euro-2016 allowed as many as 2 national teams to pass directly, and the participants who took the 3rd place fought to enter the tournament through the playoffs. Ukraine’s opponents in group C were Spain, Slovakia, Belarus, Luxembourg and North Macedonia.

Mykhailo Fomenko’s team started the qualification with a match against the Slovaks. The absence of Konoplyanka and Rotan did not confuse the bookmakers, who were convinced of the victory of the Ukrainians. However, in the 17th minute, Mak threw the ball between the legs of Rakytskyi and opened the scoring in the match. This goal was enough for the guests of NSC Olimpiyskiy to win, but Andriy Pyatov tried to stop their triumph in the last minute of the game.

At the end of the match, the goalkeeper of the national team of Ukraine ran to the corner and “stuffed” the ball into the goal. However, the goal was disallowed due to a foul on the opponent’s goalkeeper. According to the results of ten matches played, the Ukrainian national team took third place, beat Slovenia in the playoffs (2:0, 1:1) and went to the “legendary” Euro for Tymoshchuk in France.

Is there hope?

As you can see, before the current Euro-2024 campaign, the national team of Ukraine lost the opening match of selection at major national team tournaments three times. Of these three cases, the “blue-yellows” managed to qualify only once, once they were eliminated in the selection playoffs, and once more they did not even make it to the playoffs. So it’s worth believing…

Myroslav KOLOTYLO
for “Government Courier”