World Cup Analysis

Still a one-man team?

By Olga Sellars ⋅ June 28, 2006 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

A marathon victory over Switzerland in the most dire of games took Ukraine, incredibly, to the World Cup quarter-finals on their debut appearance. Olga Sellars reports from Ukraine on the reaction to the victory.

“Ukraine is a total nightmare! They just don’t let you play, and win due to some unbelievable luck!” This was the translated comment of the Swiss defender, Ludovic Magnin, in his after-match interview. But on the pitch the Swiss team couldn’t find any solid footballing argument that would persuade anybody it was indeed just pure luck that caused their loss. As Magnin suggests Ukraine made life difficult for Switzerland.

The Swiss do go home with one achievement. They have become the first country in the history of the World Cup to be knocked out without conceding a goal in any game. That they even failed to score from three penalties that summed their night up perfectly.

If anybody outside of Switzerland and Ukraine expected exciting and attacking football, they were in for a nasty surprise. The fans of the two countries know their teams well enough to confidently predict a cautious game in which just one error could decide the match. Both are the “middle class” of European football, and both play a similar style, based not on a star’s personality, but on collective work and discipline.

It was not a game of pure footballing technique, but one of nerves. With similar counter-attacking preferences, one team had to give up its usual pattern of play in order to break the stalemate. Sometimes, Ukraine seemed to be the team that made attempts to attack. If they could have added some speed and precision to the last pass, we would not have witnessed the drama of the penalty shoot-out.

Ukraine played wide through Gusev and Nesmachniy on the wings, while Switzerland showed excellent pressing all over the pitch. The most demonstrative evidence of the above was the Nesmachniy-Barnetta duel on Ukraine’s left wing. And, Gusev was just brilliant on the right wing, providing Ukraine’s main attacking threat.

As for efforts on goal, the teams gave their fans some brief hope of a spectacular match. Wicky had an excellent shot from twenty yards well saved by Shovkovskiy. Then Shevchenko and Frei both struck the woodwork. In the 20th minute, Kalinichenko sent a free kick deep into the Swiss penalty box, where Sheva’s diving flick header bounced off the ground and onto the crossbar. Two minutes later, it was a free kick to Switzerland. Frei’s shot was like a bullet that left no chance for the keeper, Shovkovskiy, but as with Sheva, the crossbar denied him and helped to keep the game scoreless. Those were in fact the most exciting episodes in the entire game.

Both teams had to fill gaps in their defence for this match. Philippe Senderos’s tournament was already over due to a dislocated shoulder. The inexperienced Johan Djourou took his place, but unfortunately for him Stephane Grichting replaced him in the 33rd minute due to injury. Ukraine had two defenders suspended for the game and the manager, Oleg Blokhin, moved Andriy Gusin from his usual midfield position into the centre of the defence where he played very well helping to keep the Swiss strikers quiet.

Although there were very few chances in the game, Ukraine were the team that deserved to win the match, showing a greater positive attacking desire and committing more men forward in comparison with the Swiss. With time running out neither team took any risks, preferring to wait for their opponent to commit a match-deciding mistake.

It is hard to describe much about the rest of the 120 minutes of the goalless draw. That the first offside occurred in the 102nd minute of the game says it all. Ukraine’s display was briefly revived in extra time when the young striker Milevskiy came on as a substitute for Voronin - he tried to wake up the rest of his team with his pace, and caused numerous problems for the Swiss defence, but ultimately he got little help from his fatigued teammates. Milevskiy seems to have no fear of responsibility or of anyone’s reputation in football, and his self-confidence was to be shown later when he took an extremely cool penalty. As for the Swiss, even their substitutions could not change the complexion of the game.

And so it was to be the first penalty shoot-out of the tournament. Oleg Blokhin, the most energetic member of the Ukrainian team, and who probably possessed more pace running around the bench than his players did on the pitch, couldn’t bear to watch it. He retired to the dressing room to wait for the result. After the game, Blokhin confessed, ‘One hundred and twenty minutes of nervous tension were enough for me. I couldn’t bear it any more.’

Ukraine had the advantage of going first with the captain, Shevchenko, supposed to set a precedent by scoring the first penalty. But Sheva’s shot was poor and posed no problem to Zuberbuehler’s goal, and he easily saved. That seemed to be “the beginning of the end” for Ukraine. But the response from Switzerland was equally poor – Steller’s weak shot was easily saved by Shovkovskiy. And still no one could score!

Milevsky was next up for Ukraine. I reckon Zuberbuehler didn’t watch the UEFA Under-21 Championships held a month ago, otherwise he may well have predicted Milevskiy’s intentions. The young striker repeated his confidently taken cheeky slow chip just as he had done at that earlier tournament, leaving the Swiss keeper helpless on the grass. Ukraine went 1-0 up, now with hope and greater confidence. The Swiss response made Ukrainian fans scream wildly and Swiss fans tear their hair out as Barnetta put all his strength into the shot but instead of the net bulging, the crossbar shook.

The experienced Rebrov now approached the spot. By now there were no fingernails left to chew on Ukrainian and Swiss hands. Rebrov confidently scored after sending the ‘keeper the wrong way. He was followed by Cabanas who shot straight into the centre of the goal and found a joyful Shovkovskiy who made his second save! With two penalties left Ukraine were on the verge of victory with a 2-0 lead.

Only one more successful penalty was needed and Gusev was the one walking towards the ball. If only Gusev scores! And he did! Forty-eight million Ukrainians erupted as the ball hit the net to provide the sweetest TV picture and we will never tire of watching it again and again! Ukraine had made it through to the quarter-final, in the end comfortably beating Switzerland 3-0 on penalties.

I believe that after the tournament the world’s footballing pundits will stop labelling Ukraine a “one-man team” because it is certainly not a team of one star and has never been so. The ’superstar’, Andriy Shevchenko, has still not shown the world the most of his talent, but Ukraine are still going through to the quarter-final. Now that needed real team work!

Italy awaits Ukraine in Friday evening’s quarter-final. The Azzurri, however, should not invoke too much fear because we recently played them in a pre-World Cup friendly in a game that ended 0-0. So why shouldn’t we now upset one of the greatest footballing nations?

Tags: Ukraine

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