Ruslan Rotan: “We were stronger than the opponent by a head or even by two, but our mistakes became fatal”

The head coach of the Ukrainian Olympic team, Ruslan Rotan, commented on his team’s defeat to Iraq (1:2) in the opening match of the 2024 Games.

“Everyone saw everything. What kind of regularity can we talk about when the opponent takes two or three shots and we lose? I think there are more global mistakes, childish ones, that turned this game around. We have to accept this result. We lost because of mistakes.

Pens are our problems. We must not give up. We emphasized that the problem is not in the mistakes, but in how we act after them. This fact disappointed me because we did not believe in ourselves.

I believe we were stronger than the opponent by a head or even by two, but our mistakes became fatal for us. We started to worry, rush, and get nervous. This is unnecessary. There was time to fix them. I didn’t like that.

We have two games against even stronger teams. The next match is the most important. We need to recover now. I think we should approach Morocco in better physical and mental shape,” — Rotan’s words are cited by “Suspilne”.