Mykola Neseniuk: "Rebrov turned out to be a realist"

Renowned journalist Mykola Nesenyuk commented on the final round match of the Euro 2024 qualifying cycle between the national teams of Ukraine and Italy (0-0), which took place yesterday in Leverkusen.

"Bravo, Rebrov!

Yesterday, the national team of Ukraine did not lose to Italy for the first time in its history! And the credit for this, of course, goes to our coach Serhii Rebrov. He was well aware of the balance of power and had no illusions about the potential of both his team and the opponent's team. And this ratio was such that the best Ukrainian players had to play against a far from strong Italian squad exclusively from defence. And when we did not have players in reserve who could strengthen the game, Italy could well have fielded two or even three more teams that would have had an undeniable advantage over ours.

Serhii Rebrov proved to be a realist and therefore built the team's defensive play in such a way as to leave the Italians no gap for a decisive strike. Therefore, Italy's advantage in all indicators without exception did not bring any result. Because this result could have been achieved by a striker of the level of Kane, Holland or Lukaku, who is able to turn the team's advantage into a goal, guaranteed or almost guaranteed. Fortunately for us, Italy does not have such a forward at present. So all we had to do was not to "bring" the goal to ourselves. Our guys coped with this task, although there were some attempts to "bring it in". But the opponent did not take advantage of them for the reason mentioned above.

But we didn't need a draw, we needed a win! We had to score! Unfortunately, the potential of Dovbyk, Tsygankov, Mudryk, Sudakov, Zinchenko and our other players, with all our sympathy for them, was obviously not enough for this. And Rebrov also understood this. Therefore, our counterattacks were not so much attempts to score as an opportunity to take a break from the total Italian invasion.

There was only one option - not to concede in the first eighty minutes of the game so that the opponent would start to worry about the result - one mistake could decide everything! And when you're afraid of making mistakes, you're bound to make mistakes. We just had to make it to these last minutes!

And so it happened - the Italians got excited and started making mistakes. Unfortunately, our leaders were already tired by then, and those who came on instead only added to the confusion. The last chance for us was to "earn" an eleven-metre penalty in the final minutes! But how do you "earn" it when the referee made it clear from the first minutes that he would not respond to attempts to "draw" violations by both opponents. During the whole game, he did not give either team a chance to hit a free kick in the centre of the goal at least once. And although the game sometimes resembled a free-for-all rather than football, especially during the set-pieces, the referee stood his ground to the end.

Therefore, Mudryk's attempt to fall convincingly near the other side's goal in the last minutes was ignored. This is not the Ukrainian championship, where referees regularly look for an opportunity to give a penalty in the last minutes in favour of the right team! After all, Leverkusen is not Zhytomyr!

Will the episode with the falling Mudryk become the basis for another legend about the insidious referee who deprived us of victory? It will depend on how our team plays in the additional matches for the right to qualify for Euro 2024 in March. I am sure that when we all live to see that March, our team, led by Rebrov, will get the desired result. And then we will forget the episode with Mudryk's fall as a bad and not funny joke.

All that's left is to live to see that March!" Neseniuk wrote on his Facebook page.