Earning our seat among Europe’s Elite 13

Well, its been a roller-coaster this year for our Zhovto-Blakytni, with a lot of close calls…

In a tough Group 6, we held for a couple dramatic ties against Croatia and posted a narrow away loss to England – in both the shark-infested waters of Zagreb and Wembley stadium. Belarussian conviction nearly ended our Ukrainian campaign early – a win in Minsk on Sept 9th could have saved us a lot of anxiety, but it wasn’t meant to be. It took a home victory (largely Internet-watched) over England in Dnipropetrovsk to vault our Yellow-Blues to second, from which they haven’t looked back.

Looking ready, in home kits

So here we sit, waiting for the final two playoff matches to prove ourselves worthy for our seat among the 13 European teams heading in to South Africa for the 2010 World Cup. We’re down to the last 4 spots. Get ready for some fantastic football.

Things kick off on November 14th, and we’ve drawn an away-and-home series against Greece, the lowest-ranked of the seeded teams (16th in the world, FIFA). They are, however, a dangerous opponent – a EURO 2004 victory doesn’t happen by accident. We’ve all heard about Greek fans at home.

I like our chances, though. Why? The Yellow-Blues have shown poise under pressure, winning when it matters. On aggregate scoring, Ukraine beat both England and Croatia – two teams FIFA ranks consistently ahead of our next opponents. Ukraine only lost 1 game through Group 6 qualification – in fact, our Yellow-Blues averaged scoring 2.1 goals/game, only giving up an average of 0.6 (21 goals for, 6 goals against). Ukraine’s FIFA ranking has been gaining steam recently, with the team winning their last couple fixtures to bounce back up to 22nd (FIFA) worldwide. It wasn’t long ago we were 11th.

Our team has depth. Coach Oleksiy Mykhaylychenko has an impressive arsenal at his disposal, quarterbacked by the experienced Captain Andriy Shevchenko. Sheva has found his form again, improving with each Dynamo match. He’s showing great speed, skill and playmaking ability. Sheva is also becoming quite a partner for Artem Milevskiy – who’s turning heads as one of Europe’s emerging top assassins. But don’t forget about some of the rocket goals launched by recent Ukrainian footballer of the Year Serhiy Nazarenko (who’s netted 5 already). Anatoliy Tymoshchuk is as solid as he’s ever been in the mid-field. The team has such depth that other tigers, like Andriy Voronin, now have to patiently wait for their opportunities to hit the pitch.

Our next match is Greece on November 14th in Athens, followed by home turf – Donetsk – on the 18th. We control our World Cup fate… and I wouldn’t want it any other way.