On Sunday, 20 November, the national team of Ukraine in a match of the qualifying cycle of Euro 2024 with a score 0:0 played a draw with the national team of Italy and, having taken the final third place in Group "C", thus failed to solve the task of reaching the final part of the European Championship.
The meeting was nominally home for the Ukrainian national team, but because of the war was held in Leverkusen, Germany. Here is the post-match press conference of the head coaches of the teams.
Serhiy REBROV, head coach of the Ukraine national team:
- Comment on the moment at the end of the match with Mudryk. After all, there was a clean penalty ...
- I do not know, I also think that there was a clean penalty. But there is VAR. We don't decide. Probably, the VAR referee watched the replay of this episode and decided that there was no offence.
Сергей Ребров. Фото — А.Попов- What prevented your team from winning today? After all, surely you had some plan to achieve such a result.
- Yes, we had a plan. But today we played against the reigning European champions. It is very difficult in a match with such a team to press from the first minute. Therefore, in the first half we concentrated on defence, and after the break we started to press more, play more intensively and thanks to this we created chances against Italy.
Of course, all the guys are now very upset that they did not get the necessary result, but I think that they showed a good game, and I can only thank them.
- How difficult was it to play in such a qualifying group?
- Of course, it was difficult. Not many people believed in us before the start of the qualifiers. But we fought until the last match. I am grateful to the players, with whom we have been working together for about six months. They showed understanding of our game, showed Ukrainian character. As you all know, the war in Ukraine continues. It is hard for the players, who are always looking at the phone, watching the news, as well as me. It is not easy to work in this atmosphere. But we all realise that we represent a strong country, which we demonstrated on the pitch. We showed character, we fought for our country.
- What can you say about the atmosphere that was at the stadium today?
- I am grateful to Leverkusen and Germany for the opportunity to play at this magnificent stadium. There was a great atmosphere today, starting from the moment the National Anthem was played. Italians applauded us - it was a very emotional moment. They showed respect and support for Ukraine. The atmosphere, I repeat, was great.
Luciano SPALLETTI, head coach of the Italian national team:
- On the eve of today's match, I observed in the media a lot of apprehension for the result. This is due to the fact that we had a bad start to this qualifying cycle. But regardless of that we had to qualify for Euro 2024. And I am happy with the result we ended up with. At the same time, it is encouraging.
Today the ball went back and forth constantly. In general, it's not normal when you can't score a goal for 60 minutes when you have opportunities to do so. In the first half, we were constantly "sitting" in the opponent's penalty area. The Ukraine national team realised their ideas well, but today we fought to the end.
- Comment on the moment at the end of the match with Mudryk. Was there a penalty?
- Cristante put his foot next to Mudryk's foot, but did not touch him. So there was no offence there.
Alexander POPOV from Leverkusen
