Former head coach of Dnipro-1 Oleksandr Kucher said what he thinks about the starting match of the Ukrainian Olympic team at the 2024 Games, in which the Blue-Yellows lost 1:2 to Iraq.
Alexander Kucher. Photo — scdnipro1.com.ua- What can I say... There is a result that we are not satisfied with. In the match against Iraq we made a lot of mistakes in defense. And the eleven-meter penalty was completely unnecessary. As for the second goal, we gave too much space to Iraqi Jasim. He calmly passed from the left edge, approaching the penalty area of our team, where some of our players jumped to prevent him, but....
In my opinion, you should meet a player who is approaching our possession much earlier and not let him gain speed and accelerate the attack. Unfortunately, too much time was given to Iraktsu to work with the ball. This should not be done.
- Now our Olympic team is going through a similar scenario, as it was this year in the group round of the European Championship for our national team and at the same stage of the current European Championship for the U-19 national team. In both cases there were initial failures, after which the tournament fate turned out differently.
- Yes, of course. Unfortunately, we are again stepping on the same rake. The game with Iraq was one of those games where everyone was counting on the maximum result. And again we lost... And now in games with stronger opponents we need to correct ourselves and get two wins. The tournament position has become more complicated, but everything depends on us.
- What do you think about the other match in our group, in which Argentina unexpectedly lost to Morocco? Can this result be in favor of the Ukrainian Olympic team?
- Now it does not matter much. In any case, we need a victory over the Argentines, and over the Moroccans too. Two wins for our Olympic team will guarantee passage to the next round of the Olympic tournament.
Oleg Didukh
