Mykola Nesenyuk: "Ukraine's game against Albania convincingly proved that the defeat by Romania at Euro 2024 was not accidental"

Famous journalist Mykola Neseniuk shared his thoughts on the results of the match of the 1st round of the 2024/25 Nations League Ukraine - Albania (1-2), which took place yesterday in Prague.

"Ukraine's game against Albania convincingly proved that the defeat by Romania in the opening game of Euro 2024, which crossed out all plans and left us out of the tournament, was not accidental, as we would like to believe. That defeat, like yesterday's defeat by Albania, was natural and logical.

In the game against the Albanians, we saw our team play the same way we did three months ago in the game against the Romanians: possession of the ball without any sharpness. And only the low level of Albanian players along with luck saved the team of coach Serhiy Rebrov in the first half of the game. Luck did even more - the first goal scored by the Ukrainians was not the logical conclusion of our advantage, but a lucky break caused by a series of mistakes by the opponents.

It seemed like what could be easier than bringing the game to a victorious conclusion? But our team couldn't even do that, "bringing" the first goal in return and getting caught on the counterattack when the Albanians scored the winning goal.

And it wasn't the fault of individual players or the poorly chosen lineup - it was clear that the Albanians knew what they were playing and what they wanted. It was unclear what our team was playing and what they wanted. And so the first-ever defeat of the Ukrainians by the Albanians was, unfortunately, quite logical and fair.

Sad to say, losing to Romanians and Albanians is the real level of the current national team of Ukraine. I will be very happy when Serhiy Rebrov and his staff prove that this is not the case in the next Nations League game against the Czech Republic," Nesenyuk wrote on his Facebook page.