Written from Germany by Alexey DOSPEKHOV, Kommersant
The national team of Ukraine made its debut at the World Championships in failure. As weak as she did in yesterday's match with Spain, not a single team has looked at this tournament yet. The Ukrainians lost 0: 4, and this score, hardly predicted by anyone, corresponded to the essence of what was happening at the Leipzig stadium.
It is not difficult to imagine what patriotic Ukrainian publications will write about after this match. The fact that the Ukrainian team is far from the first and far from the last newcomer to the world championships, whose debut did not work out. About the excitement and everything else that the debut is always accompanied by. The fact that Andrey Shevchenko started training at full strength a week ago, and several of his partners had injuries. And the most reliable of the central defenders - Sergey Fedorov - did not reach Germany at all. The fact that, judging the match is not Swiss Massimo Buzacca, but someone more qualified and more loyal to the Eastern European teams, he would not have given a penalty and a penalty in the second half. And then Ukraine would lose not 0: 4, but as the USA to the Czechs - 0: 3. Or even like Poland Ecuador - 0: 2. Honorary. And also that Tunisia and Saudi Arabia are ahead of the Ukrainians, and about the Spanish shame, which, if you look, and not even a shame, you can soon forget.
It was easy to assume that serious publications would emphasize something else. For example, on the fact that bad forebodings - with regard to Ukrainians - people who understood football in football could have a sense when they saw the starting lineups. Today, various game schemes have been successfully applied, but so far no one has been invented in which there would be no place for a football player whose role is called a playmaker or dispatcher. A person who knows how to play the game and associate defense with attack.
Looking at the Ukrainian list, they probably tried to understand who will play this role among Ukrainians. Who will be their Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldinho, Pavel Nedved. “Oporniki” Andrei Gusin or Anatoly Timoshchuk, who have specialized in destruction throughout their careers? Ruslan Rotan or Oleg Gusev, rarely leaving their flanks? Andrei Voronin, who played well with Shevchenko, owns a pass, but is he rather a striker than a midfielder?
Two playmakers showed up in that dozen names that make up the reserve - Sergei Rebrov and Maxim Kalinichenko. Oleg Blokhin then could put forward a bunch of reasons explaining why none of them entered the field: injuries, lack of playing practice, but none of those who expected something more worthy from Ukraine would be easier.
With every minute, all these forebodings became more and more obvious. During the Ukrainian attacks in the center of the field, indeed, a vacuum was visually felt. Actually, almost all attacks did without this very center of the field - the ball simply flew over it. Such tactics sometimes work. But only if the transmission is performed by a very skilled master and if someone else's defense is not too strong.
How effective this manner of conducting football affairs was in the Ukrainian interpretation could easily be determined by anyone who carefully watched Shevchenko and wrote down all the episodes in which he, the team’s main hope, received the ball. After the first half, two lines would appear in a notebook. In the first one it would be written how in the 20th minute the ball hit him in the chest and was selected by one of the three Spaniards standing nearby. In the second - as somewhere at the end of the starting half-hour, Shevchenko finally did something like a targeted transmission. But - again, not on the move, again - practically in the fight. And he, thinking how to get out of this situation, stepped on the ball and said goodbye to him.
Shevchenko, accustomed in Milan to the fact that “below him” - Kaka and Clarence Seedorf, of course, hardly admits that in this arrangement he felt out of place and envied the programs regularly delivered to Xavi and Xabi Alonso to Spanish colleagues - Fernando Torres, David Villiers, Luis Garcia. But two touches of the ball in 45 minutes, not a single shot on goal - these statistics are more convincing than any words.
To attack such a Ukrainian team - without a spark in the middle, with a toiling idle 65 millionth leader - was hard. But there was still an option not to miss. It seemed not so hopeless, if you recall how recently Russia, also playing without a special spark, defended in Spain 0-0.
This Spanish team was already not the one that was tormented with the Russians in Albacete. From that there were only names on T-shirts and a giant drum of the legendary Manolo on the podium. This Spanish team was faster and meaner. And she achieved what she did not achieve - a quick goal. Alexander Shovkovsky pulled out of the “nine” ball sent there by Marcus Senna, but was unable to pull the ball, which, after the Spaniard earned a corner, sent his head into his goal from three meters Khabi Alonso.
Worse than a quick goal, in such matches there can be only one thing - two quick goals. The worst for Ukraine happened when Andrei Rusol first dumped Vilya near the box, and then hit his head with a ball fired by the injured Spanish striker above the “wall”. Shovkovsky again had nothing to blame - you will not react to such ricochets.
Blokhin exchanged Gusin with Gusev for a break for Oleg Shelaev and Andrei Voroby, never remembering the plowers sitting on the bench. But Sparrow immediately burst into the penalty area, and something so encouraging, it is possible, was flooded in the hearts of Ukrainian fans. It was flooded - and was immediately ruthlessly killed by Buzakka, who saw in the movement the body of Vladislav Vashchuk and Fernando Torres running away alone in the penalty box pulling something on the penalty spot, coupled with a red card. If before the fall of Torres the score would not have been 0: 2, and most importantly, at least some intrigue had been outlined, perhaps we could have said that Buzacca’s unjust decision ruined Ukraine and this very intrigue. But one spurt of Sparrow - a hint is too foggy.
Further, with the absolutely obvious outcome of the meeting, only some little things could interest. Will Villa make the first hat-trick of the championship or not? He didn’t, because Luis Aragones was obliged to let Raul play. Will relaxed Spain concede one goal? I didn’t miss it, because Ukraine’s chances, though, were not the ones that were called absolute, and the best one missed, among other things, sent (with about an hour, it seems, delay) Blokhin to the Rebrov field. Will the Spaniards, who have not lost their taste for the attack, score the fourth goal? They scored. And the most spectacular - with the advance of the "homebody" Carles Puyol, his chest and blow from the summer of Fernando Torres.
A beautiful ending for Spain, a nightmare for Ukraine. Blokhin, by the way, did not refer to the opening excitement, injuries and Buzakka, justifying the nightmare. He took all the blame on himself and promised to draw conclusions. Moreover, there is no tragedy in this defeat, no matter how strange it may sound. Ahead, after all, Ukraine, in fact, is no longer Spain, but Tunisia with Saudi Arabia.
SPAIN - UKRAINE - 4: 0 (2: 0)
Goals: Xabi Alonso, 13; Villa, 17, 48 (pen.); Torres 81
Spain: Iker Casillas - Mariano Pernia, Pablo, Carles Puyol, Sergio Ramos - Xavi, Marcos Senna, Xabi Alonso (David Albelda, 55) - Fernando Torres, David Villa (Raul, 55), Luis García (Francesc Fabregas, 77).
Ukraine: Alexander Shovkovsky - Andrey Nesmachny, Vladislav Vashchuk, Andrey Rusol, Andrey Gusin (Oleg Shelaev, 46) - Vladimir Ezersky, Anatoly Timoshchuk, Ruslan Rotan (Sergey Rebrov, 64), Oleg Gusev (Andrey Vorobey, 46) - Andrey Voronin, Andrey Shevchenko.
Warnings: Rusol, 17; Jezersky, 53.
Removal: Vashchuk, 47 (fbp).
Judge Massimo Buzacca (Switzerland).
06/14. Leipzig, 43 thousand spectators.