Romania 4, Ukraine 1

The Ukrainian national soccer team played its latest match even worse than the previous one. After a narrow defeat at the hands of the Japanese national team, our squad’s managers explained to journalists that the Ukrainians had played by and large better, which the game statistics confirmed. The only trouble was they failed to make full use of their favorable moments. This is not for the first time that we have heard this explanation. The impression is that our side plays a somewhat different kind of soccer, where anything but the score matters. In that case, we are up to the mark. But the problem is that the rest of the world does not want to accept our rules and continues, as hitherto, to count goals, while we continue to concede rather than score them.

It was clear even on television that the Ukrainian defensive line looked like a sieve in the Japanese match. Yet, the Japanese had pity on our players, and our goalkeeper made a few saves. The same story repeated itself in the game against Romania in Constanta. But, in contrast to the previous game, the home team, instead of offering the visitors favorable situations, scored four love goals in the first half alone, thus beating our side to a pulp.

In all probability, the two consecutive defeats supplied enough information for our team coach Leonid Buriak, and the coaches will draw appropriate conclusions. Please remember only that Andriy Shevchenko’s absence is no excuse. Experience shows that banking on one, even prominent player is futile. Therefore, it is very important to try out all options and short list the people who will make up the first string of Ukraine’s national team before the Europe-2004 qualifying tournament begins. It is good that the national team management is inviting a large number of candidates. Yet, unfortunately, the number of those to really rely on is still very small and very far from the common folk, that is, the hoi polloi of Ukrainian soccer players who began the Ukrainian championship’s spring matches. There is no other option but to spot talents precisely among them. Or shall we Ukrainize African transfer players? We are supposed to be a soccer nation; at least I always thought so.