Honored Coach of Ukraine Jozsef Szabo talks about the 0-0 match between Ukraine and Belgium, which was the final one for Serhiy Rebrov's team at Euro 2024.
Jozef Szabo- "In such tournaments, there is no time for warm-ups, you have to give your best from the first second. And the Euro, in my opinion, demonstrated the lack of a leader on the field who is able to set the pace, lead his teammates, take responsibility, and, if necessary, take risks.
I also can't find an answer to the question of why our national team starts creating something only in the second half! The coaches obviously know the answer, but they are in no hurry to voice it. The European Championship demonstrated that despite the words of praise, we do not have players in the attacking line who would meet the level of the tournament. We had a hard time scoring goals, with Shaparenko, Sudakov, Dovbyk dropping out of the game against the Belgians...
On the eve of the Euro, the press wrote that this team was the strongest in all the years of Ukraine's independence. But what did we see in practice? The main composition of the national team, if there was one in the minds of our coaches, was not visible on the field. And an attempt to find optimal connections already during the tournament in Germany did not give the desired result - the matches follow one another and here the space for working on mistakes is extremely narrow.
It's a pity, but the result corresponds to the game demonstrated by our team," summarized Jožef Jožefović.
