Iceland head coach Oge Hareide told what he expects from the match against Ukraine in the final play-off round of the Euro 2024 qualifying round, which will take place today in Wroclaw.
"Ukraine is a great football nation. It's difficult to assess whether their national team is better than ours, but we know that any team can be beaten. We have tried to create a team that is hard to break. And which also has strength when everyone fulfils on the pitch what is required of them in this particular match.
There are physically strong players in the Ukraine national team, there are fast players. This is a team that wants to attack all the time and does it whenever they have the opportunity. We saw it in their game against Italy in November: they are lightning-fast from defence to attack and quickly overcome the enemy lines. We have to deal with that, we cannot let the Ukrainians get the ball in dangerous areas.
If we manage to contain them, anything can happen in the upcoming match. After all, when the Ukrainians attack, they also have certain weaknesses, and we must try to exploit them when we have such opportunities. We also have fast and clever players for that," Hareide said at yesterday's pre-match press conference in Wroclaw.