Comments on: England 2 – 1 Ukraine: Solid Performance Goes Unrewarded

By: yevy

yevy — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 02:35:53 +0000

Sheva has not played more than a half hour since last year, so I don’t think starting him was an option. This was going to be a tough match for anyone Ukraine put up front. Perhaps against a lesser opponent Voronin could have done better…

Mikha gets a bad rep because he was supposed to be the heir to Lobanvsky but failed miserably at Dynamo. Lots of people will not let that go until he accomplishes something. He is also notoriously tough to get along with, and supposedly quite the disciplinarian for a relatively young manager. I don’t think he’s all that bad but he’s definitely no genius. I think it’s good to have someone who was a legitimate Ukrainian star managing the national because that does help him motivate the players before matches. But unless Ukraine qualifies for 2010 he is not long for this job…

By: Sasha

Sasha — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 13:19:43 +0000

Also, why the criticism for Mykhaylichenko? I think he has done a fine job with the NT so far. We are still in a decent position to qualify for the World Cup. We’ve had a few good games against the lesser teams (and now this hard-fought loss to England). Yes, we’ve played poorly against Belarus and Croatia, but at least not poorly defensively. And even after a poor game, the coach makes comments that are spot on, which means he knows exactly what to do to improve the team. He follows the younger players in the UPL and gives them chances on the NT as appropriate. If he decides to drop Voronin after this game, I will truly start liking this coach. Perhaps his only fault is seeming somewhat low-key and not particularly inspirational (compared to Blokhin, I suppose), but I don’t really know much about that.

By: Sasha

Sasha — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 13:10:38 +0000

Great analysis Yevy. You make it sound so epic (and it is, for us Ukrainians). And you’re right, Terry was offside. It was indeed a frustrating loss, and I cannot help dreaming about my joy if Sheva had not only scored the equalizer, but also the winner. But I am still quite happy, because as you’ve said, our team can play. Admittedly, most of the time the ball was in our half, but our few half-chances were just as good as England’s. It was a strange game; the best chance from open play came when Shevchenko opened up Tymoschuk to shoot (how would it be the other way around?). That just goes to show the strength of our midfield, which was not troubled by Lampard, Barry and co.

Finally, I think we should stop calling up Voronin. How many non-performance has he produced for the NT? We’ve seen clearly this last game that a in-form club Voronin is STILL worse than a completely off-form club Shevchenko. We’ve also seen that Shevchenko still has the passion to run hard and fight for the team. I just think that if Sheva started with Milevskiy, the outcome may have been different.