Voronin: “We win as a team, and we lose as a team”

May 22nd, 2006 | By: WC Bob | 5 Comments »

Ukraine’s Andriy Voronin goes one-on-one with the FIFA reporters and offers up a fairly upbeat account of how he thinks the team will do:

Many people have us marked down as dark horses and reckon we have a decent chance. Obviously we have to be proud about that. But our initial target is to get through the group phase and that will be hard enough. The sky’s the limit after that, and we’ll just do our best to go as far as we can.

He also talks about the team being much more than just one player. He is absolutely right. We need a team effort to do well in this tournament!

Tags: Andriy Voronin, Ukraine

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Comments

By OPKO | May 25th, 2006 at 10:19 am

Voronin shows a mindset that is evident in all the players on Ukraine’s national team. Fortunately they have not shown the type of bickering and infighting that we see in higher profile teams. Perhaps this is because many of them have not made it out into the elite club teams of western europe. They have achieved moderate success in Europe with Dynamo or Shakhtar, and this is why they qualified, however they have not been spoiled by being submersed into the culture/lifestyle of these other situations. Those who have made it out (ex. Sheva and Voronin) have the mental toughness not to let it all get to them (as shown by this article on Voronin).

Posted from Canada

By Andriy | May 25th, 2006 at 1:12 pm

Well, I got a little worried about their mindset after I read some comments Blokhin made back in April, he was concerned that there was a lack of drive from younger players. Blokhin:”The young players do not listen to me for some reason, they are not knocking on the door, they are not pushing into the team.”

Other players apperently felt they have accomplished their goal, to qualify for the World Cup. Blohkin: “In one way or another, it has affected those who went through qualifying with honour and then suddenly felt they were irreplaceable.”

I wanna see hunger and desperation from this team, they need to absolutely want that cup, they need to hit the field against every team with 150%.

well, thats just my 2 cents

Posted from United States

By marco | May 26th, 2006 at 4:11 am

I LOVE SHEVA .. one of the best ever (hes very much like zidane - never complains, greate role moddle) Any way i hope you destroy SPAIN!!!! Oh you better watch out though .. there players may be on performance enhancing drugs (as 200 spanish athlets are suposedly taken them from cylcists to FOOTBALL PLAYERS (as they did a huge raid) .. so you might have a little disadvantage

Posted from Australia

By OPKO | May 26th, 2006 at 9:03 am

What are the drug tests like at the world cup? In my memory, I don’t think drug testing/players being suspended or sent home has ever happened? I’m sure the policy is posted somewhere on the FIFA site.

Posted from Canada

By Vlad | June 30th, 2006 at 3:09 pm

Ukraine, after the end of the world cup , there will be one team the most respected , the team that wins the final, Ukraine will be 2nd most respected if you beat Italy in quater final!
good luck

Posted from Ukraine