Luck has failed Ukrainian national soccer team

“Devic! Devic!” – fans chanted the name of the famous Ukrainian forward. At one point it seemed as if he, Marko Devic, author of the goal scored against the British team which was waved off during Euro-2012, would dot all the “i”s and would also take a revenge on the British team bringing Ukraine closer to the European soccer championship in Brazil in 2014. But there was no miracle that night. Devic sat on the bench for the entire game. Later coach Mykhailo Fomenko explained this by saying: “Marko had health problems and for this game the players could not perform not at full capacity.” Another famous soccer player, former captain of the national team Anatolii Tymoshchuk, also did not come on the field, which greatly surprised even British media.

When Ukrainian anthem was performed at the beginning of the game the entire stadium NSC “Olimpiisky” sang along. Perhaps, this wasn’t obvious through TV broadcast, but at the stadium you could only hear fans’ voices. Even during the game the especially conscious fans rose and sang the anthem.

The atmosphere at the stadium was very friendly. Of course! Nearly 70,000 fans (69,800 fans to be precise) expected the team coached by Mykhailo Fomenko to win. The entire stadium was wearing national flags and only one sector was all white and red – these were the guests from England. According to the organizers, about 2,000 British fans came to Kyiv to watch the game. One of them – Kevin admitted to The Day that he expected more from the game, but the overall atmosphere was rather exciting. “What concerns Sol Campbell, who urged people not to come to Ukraine last year, I must say that I was here during Euro-2012 and got an impression that Kyiv is a very friendly and fun city. Campbell is just a liar. By the way, English fans do not really like him,” said Kevin.

All four Ukrainian presidents watched the game from the VIP boxes. This once again stressed the status of the game. There was no way the Ukrainian national team could lose and they didn’t. Perhaps, thousands of fans at the stadium, who came to Kyiv from Lviv, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, and other cities, and millions of TV audience, who watched the live broadcast of the game were somewhat disappointed because they didn’t get to see our team win, because of some tactic substitutions at the end of the game and the game to maintain score. But the experienced coach Fomenko decided not to risk it and offered the English team his lingering style of playing the game. Ukrainian players created enough bright moments. It was a great game anyway! Even though the tie score in this game suited the English team more (they currently rank first in the group “H” with 16 points, Ukraine is second with 15 points), Ukrainian team still has two home games against Poland and San Marino – on October 11 and 15 respectively. If these two games will end with a result in favor of Ukraine – our team will play in the World Cup 2014.