We broke even

After a crushing defeat from the Spaniards, the Ukrainians scored four goals against Saudi Arabia

The Ukrainian team continues to fight at the World Championships. Oleg Blokhin's team, having defeated Saudi Arabia - 4:0, fully rehabilitated for the defeat from Spain. To reach the 1/8 finals, the Ukrainians now need to beat the Tunisian team next Friday. And judging by the match with the Arabians, they are quite capable of it.

Before the match, Oleg Blokhin had quite serious problems with the squad, and primarily with the defensive line: Vashchuk was disqualified, Chigrinsky and Yezersky were injured, and the team’s second goalkeeper Bogdan Shust even had to put a cast on his injured arm. “If we achieve a positive result, it will mean that we managed to overcome this problem,” Blokhin said before the match, answering a question about difficulties with the squad, and promised that the Ukrainian team would appear in a completely different light than in a match lost with a score of 0:4 with the Spaniards. “The game with Saudi Arabia is our last chance. If we take points in two matches with the Arabians and Tunisia, we will have a good chance of reaching the playoffs, and we must take advantage of it,” team captain Andrei Shevchenko was equally determined.

However, the Saudi Arabian team was no less in a fighting spirit. "We are looking forward to the match to try to fulfill our dream of reaching the knockout stages of the World Cup," said Brazilian Arabian coach Marcos Cesar Paqueta. -- The Ukrainians will try to score as many goals as possible to reduce their negative goal difference. This could be very dangerous for us. But at the same time, they will be nervous and we can use that to our advantage.”

Packet was right. The Ukrainian team rushed forward from the first minutes, trying to score a quick goal. And they succeeded. If fortune owed something to Blokhin’s team for the match with Spain, in which the balls flew into the Ukrainian goal with the help of ricochets, it completely paid off by the third minute of the game with the Arabians. It is unknown how defender Andrei Rusol was going to act when he ran to pass the corner. Apparently, he still wanted to head it, but the ball hit his knees and, flying between the legs of Saudi Arabian goalkeeper Mambrouk Zaeda, ended up in the net.

The Arabian goalkeeper may have played the worst match of his career. But at first he was lucky. With the score 0:1, during another corner kick, Shevchenko struck from a lethal position. The Saudi Arabia team defender knocked the ball out of the empty goal.

If the opponents of the Ukrainian national team hoped for something in this match, then after the 36th minute they could only mentally calculate their illusory chances of getting into the playoffs: it’s difficult to count on anything, conceding goals like the ones he scored Rebrov. His shot from 35 meters did not seem too dangerous. But Mambrouk Zaeda, slipping on a field wet from the pouring rain, let the ball pass over him - 0:2. And as soon as the second half began, it was Andrey Shevchenko’s turn to score. Once again, the Ukrainians were successful in the set-piece play. Spartak midfielder Kalinichenko crossed from a free kick, and the Chelsea forward carefully headed the ball into the corner, scoring his first goal at the World Championships.

Only in the middle of the second half did the Saudi Arabian national team players come to their senses a little and tried to organize several meaningful attacks. But they all ended in inaccurate shots, and the goalkeeper of the Ukrainian team Shovkovsky had practically no work. But his colleague almost missed the fourth goal in the middle of the second half - Kalinichenko's shot hit the crossbar.

But the Ukrainians still reached zero in terms of goal difference. The fourth goal was scored by Kalinichenko, hammering the ball into the empty net after a pass from Shevchenko. And now the Ukrainian national team can feel quite confident before the match with the Tunisian national team, which will take place on Friday in Berlin.

===================================================== ======

Group "N". Ukraine - Saudi Arabia - 4:0 ( Russol 3, Rebrov 36, Shevchenko 46, Kalinichenko 84 ).

Andrey VDOVIN