Ukraine’s position as top seeds in the Euro 2020 draw in November 2019, an event that now feels from a different era, came as a surprise to many. Rightfully so, since missing out by a whisker for the 2014 World Cup, narrowly and undeservedly losing a playoff to France after blowing a 2 goal lead, Ukraine have performed below par on the international stage. A dismal campaign at Euro 2016, not only being the sole side to not get a point but also not to score, was exacerbated by a similarly poor showing in 2018 World Cup qualification, finishing 3rd in their group after failing to win in 4 attempts against Iceland and Croatia. Andriy Shevchenko, after coming in after the dismissal of Mykhaylo Fomenko in 2016, seemed not to be squeezing the most out of his squad in his first two years, but since the start of the 2018/19 Nations League have improved drastically, culminating in a really impressive Euro 2020 qualifying campaign where Shevchenko has used his improving pool of players to their maximum.
Drawn into a tough qualifying group with Portugal, Serbia, Lithuania and Luxembourg, where the former two were favourites among Western European supporters to qualify as the top two, perhaps based no more on Serbia’ qualification for the 2018 World Cup, and a Luxembourg side where their ‘micro-state’ status doesn’t correlate with their footballing abilities, Ukraine grew from strength to strength as the campaign continued.
Axing some of the old guard, notably centre backs Yevhen Khacheridi and Yaroslav Rakitskiy (admittedly not really having a choice in the latter after transferring to Zenit St. Petersburg, polemicised by his refusal to sing the Ukrainian National Anthem), but keeping some who still can offer to the side, notably the pair of explosive inside forwards in Yevhen Konoplyanka and Andriy Yarmolenko, anchor man Taras Stepanenko (known for his ludircuously numerous red card record and perhaps the most savage ‘tackle’ of the decade, watch here), and, questionably, choosing to keep 36 year old Andriy Pyatov as his starting goalkeeper.
In their opener away to Portugal in March, their toughest qualifying match, Ukraine deservedly ground out a goalless draw, with their 4-3-3 turning into more of a 4-1-4-1, with Shevchenko selecting his strongest back four (Karavaev, Kryvtsov, Matviyenko, Mykolenko; the two centre backs Shakhtar based, the two full backs at Dynamo Kyiv) Stepanenko as the anchor, with the more defensive Oleksandr Zinchenko shuttling next to the more explosive Ruslan Malinovskyi, with Konoplyanka on the left, naturalised Marlos on the right and false nine Roman Yaremchuk as an attacking focal point. In practice, it was a rearguard performance from Ukraine with Pyatov making a string f decent saves, but with few if any heart-in-the-mouth moments- Portugal’s best opportunity coming from Ronaldo cutting inside from ten yards out only to fire straight at Pyatov. After selecting, naively, a rotated side in Luxembourg 3 days later, Ukraine only took all 3 points in the 93rd minute through a Gerson Rodrigues own goal. Overall, another naturalised player, Júnior Moraes (the fielding of whom aroused questions of a possible points deduction due to problems in the veracity of this naturalisation), and Roman Bezus, didn’t offer the same attacking potency as Marlos and Yaremchuk. However, Ukraine left the March international break with the points haul set out for, albeit slightly unconvincingly, but it was in June where their campaign would really take off.
Their game against Serbia in Lviv would give the winner the upper hand in qualifying automatically, a drawing being a decent result for Ukraine after their draw in Lisbon. Lining up with the same back four as in Lisbon, Shevchenko altered system slightly, changing to a midfield double pivot of Zinchenko and Stepanenko with Malinovskyi as a clear number 10, flanked by Konoplyanka to his left, Tsygankov to his right and Yaremchuk up front. Invigorated by relentless, surging runs from Karavaev and Mykolenko, and a dominance in possession provided by Malinovskyi and the pivot, the inside forwards of Tsygankov and Konoplyanka had a field day exploding into the half spaces to fire off shots and drive at an ageing Serbian defence.
The build up to the first Ukraine goal- Karavaev with the ball on the overlap, Malinovskyi occupying the Serbian centre back (number 5, Uroš Spajić), and catching the Serbian midfield out of shape, Konoplyanka, Zinchenko and Tsygankov, the farthest right of the three, dart into the edge of the box, where Tsygankov tucks in the cross into the far corner.
Almost cliché goals from the inside forwards of Tsygankov and Konoplyanka respectively followed, both simply cutting in from their wing, one touch out of their feet and a curled finish into the far corner. Konoplyanka second, and Ukraine’s fifth, was also a carbon copy of his first, sandwiching a goal by Roman Yaremchuk from another move typical of the new Ukraine, with Tsygankov cutting in, shifting the ball onto the overlap provided by Karavaev, whose cutback from the byline was tucked away by Yaremchuk. 5-0 winners, emphatically and deservedly so, the choice of Lviv over Kyiv as the city of the game proving dividends (a raucous atmosphere in a particularly anti-Russian area of country in the far west in a smaller stadium where the stands are closer to the pitch than Kyiv’s Olimpiskiy). A 1-0 win over Luxembourg, also in Lviv, followed, a profligate performance with Yaremchuk firing them into the lead with an early goal.
After the summer, two games against the weakest side in the group, Lithuania, followed, spread over the two international breaks of September and October, accompanied with friendlies against Nigeria and Estonia. Despite receiving a degree of criticism for his failure to integrate members of the Under 20 side who were victorious at the World Cup in Poland in June 2019, most notably goalkeeper Andriy Lunin, on the books of Real Madrid and who won the golden glove at the tournament, and Valeriy Bondar, who had made 11 appearances for Shakhtar before the pause in European football caused by the coronavirus, these qualms were swiftly dispelled by the dynamism and confidence of Ukraine’s performances in these games. Most notably in this were the sensational performances of Malinovskyi, a player with such elan, who looked on another plain to everyone else on the pitch in Vilnius, rounding off his performance with a beautiful long range drive to seal a 3-0 win, and scoring both of Ukraine’s goal in a 2-0 win over the same opponents in Kharkiv a month later.
Malinovskyi’s shot success for Atalanta this season- he’s hitting his peak at just the right time for Ukraine after thriving in a swanky Atalanta side. Credits to Marius Fischer on twitter, @Gegenpressing91
Their games at home to Portugal and away to Serbia in November would define whether they would qualify as a top seed, and Ukraine were duly successful in obtaining the necessary 3 points. They ended up with 4 from their final 2 games after a late equaliser in Belgrade, but their 2-1 win over Portugal 3 days earlier in Kyiv was the culmination of Shevchenko’s work. After taking the lead through a corner in the 6th minute, a patient move between Zinchenko and Mykolenko down the left produced a one on one with Nélson Semedo, with Mykolenko delivering a perfectly weighted ball for Yarmolenko, rushing in from the right half space towards the penalty area, and after getting in behind the two slow Portuguese centre backs tucked away into the bottom corner.
After Mykolenko draws out Semedo, distorting the Portuguese defensive line, Yarmolenko, already in the half space as an inside forward, darts toward the penalty spot to successfully meet the cross.
Their position of top seeds and record of 6 wins and 2 draws in qualifying is no fluke, unlike the seeding for Euro 2016 where their position as second seeds was as much to do with avoiding being placed in a group with Russia rather than their footballing abilities (in fact this restriction was what forced Ukraine into Group C this time out, unable to be placed in Group B with games in St. Petersburg). They’ll face a tough opener against the Netherlands in the opener, where there may be further disadvantaged due to its hosting in Amsterdam, but their next two group games, both in Bucharest, will both be winnable, and they’ll likely be favourites for both, notwithstanding Romania winning their playoff and joining Group C, with their game against Ukraine being on home soil. However, the likelier scenario is that they’ll play the weak Playoff D winner, alongside Austria. The expectations are higher, and rightfully so, and it would take something catastrophic to suffer a similar campaign for Euro 2016.
Shevchenko has turned Ukraine around, and with Malinovskyi in his prime, Zinchenko’s development under Guardiola, a sturdy domestic back line, a goalkeeper on Real Madrid’s books and a fresh batch of Under 20 World Cup Winners, the world is looking up for Ukraine. They go into the Euros as deserved top seeds and it’ll be exciting to see how it goes for them. Without a clear favourite, there’s no reason why they can’t win the whole thing.
By Alfie Wilson
Images credited to UEFA.tv and Sky Sports Football