After the charity match between Germany and Ukraine, Serhiy Rebrov's team was expected to continue. The national team performed very well in Bremen. In some places it seemed that the hosts, the Germans, were knocked out. The Ukrainians looked faster, more interesting and more disciplined than the hosts.
Photo by Oksana VasylievaThe matches against North Macedonia and Malta turned out to be very difficult despite the two victories. All the lightness, agility, effectiveness and efficiency had gone somewhere. We have never been able to play as a first team. I don't think that the qualities of will allowed us to take three points in both cases. The depth of the squad and the class of the players came first. The Macedonians and Maltese are physically strong, and we were able to strengthen the game thanks to substitutions. We have Viktor Tsygankov, legionnaires from the Premier League, Ligue 1, and they don't. If it wasn't for the Girona midfielder, it might not have been so much fun.
It all reminded me of the charity matches played by Dynamo Kyiv in the spring. Against Borussia, Legia, Dinamo Zagreb, Kyiv looked very good. Based on these games, they overestimated their own strength, which cost them problems during the season. Somewhere they decided to abandon the selection process, the existing squad is enough to defeat rivals in Ukraine. "Shakhtar will lose points with Ukrainian players.
Now the national team has almost stepped on this rake. The players overly believed in their own abilities and somewhere decided that they could do much more than they actually could. Matches on the third day, travelling, no time to recover and prepare. As a result, we had big problems in matches against teams of a lower class than Germany - North Macedonia and Malta. The result was determined by individual actions, not team play.
Charity matches are not even friendly matches. It is a show that is supposed to give the audience a spectacle. The goal is to raise more money, in this case to help Ukraine. The German national team did a great job. And not for the first time in the case of the Ukrainian national team.
Sergey Tishchenko
