Renowned journalist Artem Frankov told what he expects from the match of the final, 3rd round of Euro-2023 group stage (U-21) between the youth teams of Ukraine and Spain, which will be held today in Bucharest.
Artem Frankov"After Spain - Romania - 3-0, Ukraine - Croatia - 2-0 in the first round and Spain - Croatia - 1-0, Ukraine - Romania - 1-0 in the second, the situation is almost completely determined. Spain, Ukraine - 6, Croatia, Romania - 0.
It should be noted that the Spaniards were beating the Croatians in one round. However, they could have lost the victory, because in the 88th minute they allowed a near fatal strike to Frigan - fortunately the goalkeeper pulled out, the more so that the Croatian goalkeeper hit him.
In the Ukraine-Romania match everything looked very different. The game was played in the opposite direction. Three Kaszczyuk face-offs in the first half saw Romania respond with chances of their own - by and large Munteanu could have converted the brace as early as the 5th minute! It ended in a very trivial way, with Vivciarenco driving into the opposition box for Bragar, who then fired a cross to Vanata (or rather, straight into the crowd), with the Romanian centre-back Dikan cutting the ball into his own net.
My opinion: the Spaniards are stronger than ours. It's still a question of how strong they are, but Rotan's team can take the result away from Santiago Denia's charges only on one condition - their slackness. Moreover, a draw suits the Spaniards well in terms of first place - they have a better goal difference.
A separate topic is the play-off schedule. The winner of Group B goes up against the second team in Group D, which will obviously be Italy, and the second team goes up against the winner of Group D, which is France. And who to pick here? I'd be wary of the French...
My bet: a draw. Coming out of which - ours are happy with second place, as are the Spaniards. This is where you can play, but no more than that - in fact, the Spaniards are actually stronger and will win if they want to," said Frankov.
