In the final match of the Euro 2024 play-offs, the Ukrainian national team won a strong-willed victory over Iceland (2-1) and qualified for the European Championships in Germany. Blue and yellow all-rounder Oleksandr Zinchenko shared his emotions.
Oleksandr Zinchenko. Photo: Getty Images"I am very proud of this moment. I am very proud to be a Ukrainian, because today, in such a difficult time for our country, every time you put on a T-shirt with the Ukrainian coat of arms, you feel special emotions. I want to thank all the fans who have supported us throughout this time. Sometimes we may not have played the way someone wanted, but today the result came first. And thanks to your support, we got it.
I can't believe that this will be our third Euro. I feel a bit old, but as I said before, we are at the Euros. It will be a great experience for the whole team, because the team is now being rebuilt, there are many young players in it, and it will be a very big tournament for them. I also want to say that we missed the players who are not in the national team today. But the support we felt from them and from all the people was very important. I just want to thank you for that.
In principle, we expected such a game from the Icelandic national team. That is, that they would sit a little bit in defence and at the same time use their counterattacks and standards. That's why we talked to each other before the game that we should bring as few of these standards to our goal as possible. We more or less coped with this task. Unfortunately, we conceded first. The individual skill of one of their players played a role here, and we should have paid attention to him because he scored three goals for Israel. But that's football. Nevertheless, we reacted very well to this goal in the second half and, thanks to the support of the stands, we got an extremely important result.
It is always difficult to enter such games because the tension on the pitch is incredible. But to be honest, I felt much better when the fans started chanting my name when I was standing on the touchline. It just gave me even more inspiration. I just wanted to produce a result, to do something useful for the team, giving it my all.
Andriy Shevchenko came into the team's dressing room. He thanked us for the result, for the fact that he had received many messages of congratulations from people who are now giving their lives in Ukraine for our freedom. This is just an extra motivation for us to go out on the field and give our all. After all, we understood that today the result would come first, and a lot of people would be watching us. In particular, the military, who are now on the front line. We received a lot of messages from them. And there is no need to find any other motivation," said Alexander Zinchenko.
