Iceland's captain Johann Berg Gudmundsson has revealed what he expects from his national team's match against Ukraine in the final play-off round of the Euro 2024 qualifying round next Tuesday in Wroclaw.
"There are a lot of individually strong players in the Ukraine national team and we need to take care to solve this problem. In particular, they have fast players who play at club level in the top European leagues. Look at how many goals their striker from Girona (Artem Dovbik - ed.) has already scored this season. And Mudryk is extremely dangerous on the wing. There are other performers of good quality. Of course, this is a much stronger opponent than the Israeli team, with whom we played in the semifinals of the playoffs.
But in our team there are also excellent players who play at a high level and show themselves very well in their clubs. So we don't have to be afraid of any individual qualities of the opponent - it is important to counteract it with the right team actions.
We understand that the atmosphere in Wroclaw will not be in our favour. On the home side in this game will definitely be much more fans than there were during our away match with Israel. Playing in such conditions is something we need to learn from. But it is important that we have experienced players in our squad - they will help the young guys to cope with the excitement and pressure of the stands.
In any case, we are very much looking forward to this match. We have 90 minutes, and maybe even extra time and a penalty shootout to get to a major tournament. There is no better opportunity than this one. One good game and we're there. But to fulfil such a task, we need to beat the Ukraine national team and it will be difficult," Gudmundsson said at yesterday's press conference.