Soccer fete to be again without Ukraine

Ukraine’s soccer players failed to cope with the task not to cede a goal for a demoralized and fatigued team of Slovenia in the course of twenty minutes. A series of mindless mistakes caused by panic and haste in the defense line led to a ricochet into our goal after a not-so-strong shot by the Slovene forward Pavlin. With fifteen minutes left to save the game, the Slovenes had still more chances to score.

The public at large was unwilling to go to see the Slovene team. It is only the last-minute drop in ticket prices to 1-5 hryvnias that allowed this country’s main sport arena to be filled to the point befitting such a game. The optimism of pre-match publicity failed to arouse a response in most soccer lovers. For our side looked too lackluster in Ljubljana to hope for a convincing win at home. The day before the game, this writer foretold two conditions under which the Ukrainian national team could take the upper hand. The first condition: we must be helped to score either by a rival’s mistake like Russian goalie Filimonov made or by a very fairly-awarded penalty. The second condition: the absence of the fear of result in our team, i.e., of the nerves that kept the Ukrainians from showing even an elementary ability to play soccer in the first game.

Changes in the line-up of our team were to have totally misled the rivals. Indeed, only a very “serious” expert can put out five pure fullbacks in a game to be won by every possible means. On the other hand, we had as many as three forwards. So the pitch center was to be controlled by our two halfbacks, Kandaurov and Kosovsky. The former had last seen snow in Portugal, where he plays in a club, long ago, so he could hardly help in a stiff struggle for the ball in the field center. As to Kosovsky, as well as Skachenko, I cannot, with all my respect for their sports character, call them great soccer jugglers. So the very first minutes showed that the Ukrainians were playing by the principle “load us up, and we will fight.” This kind of game would only be acceptable in the case when some “load” quickly and regularly and others actively fight for the “thing loaded,” i.e., the ball. Panic- stricken and afraid of mistakes, our five fullbacks fumbled the ball so long on their side of the pitch that the Slovenes managed calmly and without bother to reliably cover each of our forwards. The individual play of Ukraine’s only international star Shevchenko could only lead to free kicks awarded him. But he only bungled them, making wide shots or passes to the places where he should have been himself. It is gratifying that in the fever of struggle our forward remembered to pull his jersey loose, by which he constantly emphasized his exclusiveness. But forget it: he might as well have been wearing that jersey upside down — if only he had scored goals.

The reader knows that throughout the match our players never managed to kick even one decent shot at the Slovene goal area. As the guests were obviously not going to score for Ukraine, our boys had nothing to do but fall, fall, and fall, so that the referee could finally award a penalty. The referee met us halfway, and, with millions of hearts frozen, the ironside Rebrov score such a necessary goal from the penalty zone.

What was left to do was to see the victorious game through, but the players were stricken with the fear I had warned of. One could see with the naked eye that our side could not or did not want to score once more against guests clearly disappointed with the referee’s disfavor. Our boys decided to spend the remaining 25 minutes as if they were a soldier about to be discharged: they were counting every second. On the 550th second a Ukrainian fullback helped the ball to bounce into the goal corner free of Shovkovsky. So that was the end of it. Our side never managed to strike at the opposing goal. We seemed to be participating in the Euro-2000 for 550 seconds. Then we returned to where we are.

We got back in order to ask: do we really have a national team, or are the yellow-blue-clad boys only part of Kyiv Dynamo, with all that this implies? Stretching the point, we might as well call Mykhailo Poplavsky (rector of the Kyiv Institute of Culture, who dabbles at singing — Ed.) a pop star, or Jozsef Szabo a worthy coach of this country’s main team. What we really see is the creation of the superclub Dynamo, with the former Soviet Union’s best players, and the decline of the national team. If things go on the way they are now, there will be nobody to choose from.

It is common practice in the civilized world to resign after a failure of the type the Ukrainian national team suffered. Will any of those responsible for this soccer debacle take such a courageous step, or will we hear again that something blocked them? Or perhaps there was no failure at all? For, judging by television commentaries, our soccer players and we all have fulfilled the main task. And Europe? Europe can wait until our players and we learn not to be afraid to play a game of our own, i.e., not to constantly quiver like some literary character but to win and lose in earnest.