Ukraine is again in the same group with Georgia

European Championship 2008

Today the Ukrainian national team will play its first match of the 2008 European Football Championship qualifying tournament. Oleg Blokhin's team will play in Kyiv with the Georgian national team. For the Ukrainians, this game will be the first official one after the quarterfinals of the World Cup, and the Georgians will play their third match in qualifying.

The previous qualifying campaign, during which tickets to the 2006 World Cup were awarded to the national teams of Ukraine and Georgia, who competed in the same qualifying group, turned out differently. While the Ukrainians managed to make it to the final stage of the World Championship for the first time in history, the Georgians performed unsuccessfully, finishing fifth in the group. The selection team began under the leadership of the Frenchman Alain Girres, and ended under Georgiy Darsadze. Throughout the tournament, Georgia alternated between good matches and downright disastrous ones. Having started the tournament with an away draw against the bronze medalists of the World Championship - the Turks - and a confident victory over the Albanians, the Georgians then also played an away draw with the Danes.

After that, the team seemed to be replaced. The closest rival of the Ukrainian national team was twice defeated at home by the same Turks - 5:2 and the Danes - 6:1. As a result, the Georgians finished in the qualifying group with two wins, four draws and six losses. Thus, Georgian football, which was highly rated in Soviet times, continued to have a bad streak. The Georgian national team has never been able to make it to the final stages of the World and European Championships in its entire history of participating in qualifying tournaments. Moreover, the Georgians did not really lay claim to winning a spot in any of the cycles.

Ukrainian footballers have never managed to make it to the European Championship. In the current selection they will try to do this for the fourth time. The closest to success was the team led by József Szabó in qualifying for Euro 2000. But having overcome the group barrier, Ukraine then unexpectedly lost to the Slovenian national team in the play-offs.

For the Ukrainians, Georgia has always been a convenient opponent, and the last meeting with this team also turned out to be historical for our players, because it was after a 1:1 draw on September 3, 2005 in Tbilisi that the Ukrainian team qualified for the final stage of the World Cup.

Before the start of the qualifying matches for the right to play at the European Championships in Austria and Switzerland, the Ukrainian national team did not conduct serious sparring, limiting itself to a meeting with Azerbaijan (6:0) and a warm-up match against the team of the first Ukrainian league - CSKA (5:1).

The Georgian national team completely abandoned friendly games, since it had to start qualifying games earlier than other teams - already on August 16. The Georgians again went on their next trip to get tickets to the prestigious tournament under the guidance of a foreign specialist. But this time at the helm of the team is an experienced specialist - German Klaus Toppmeller (the previous foreign coach of the Georgians, Alan Girres, became more famous as a player). Toppmeller's starting match in the new team was a success - his visiting team crushed the Faroe Islands team - 6:0 (Shota Arveladze scored a hat-trick, David Mujiri, Levan Kobiashvili and Alexander Iashvili scored one goal each). However, the first serious opponent showed the Georgians their place in the European football hierarchy. On September 2 in Tbilisi, Toppmeller's team was defeated by the French - 3:0.

Just like before the match with the world vice-champions, on the eve of the match with the Ukrainians the Georgian team is experiencing personnel problems. Team captain Kakha Kaladze, Georgiy Kinkladze and Lasha Dzhakobia are still in the hospital.

Yesterday, at a pre-match press conference, the head coach of the Georgian national team, Klaus Toppmeller, said that, despite the fact that after the defeat in the match against France, the Georgian players were not in the best mood, this would not affect the game against Ukraine. Toppmeller described the Ukrainian national team as a strong opponent and noted that he urged his team to believe in success, giving the players the example of the Lithuanians, who played a draw with the world champions, the Italians.

According to the head coach of the Ukrainian national team Oleg Blokhin, he expects a nervous and difficult match against the Georgian team, since this match is the debut match for the Ukrainians in the qualifying round. The team coach also expressed his opinion about the upcoming opponent. Mr. Blokhin believes that the Georgian team suffered a natural defeat in the match with the French, although the course of the match was greatly influenced by an early goal. Oleg Blokhin noted that Georgian football players in the national team operate in different positions than in their clubs. In addition, in his opinion, the players of the Georgian national team began to abuse individual actions more than in the previous qualifying tournament.

Today's match will be judged by the Czech team of referees led by Jaroslav Jara. Patrick Filipek and Antonin Cordula will help him on the line.

No more than 45 thousand spectators will be able to attend the match, which will take place at the NSC Olimpiysky. This is due to the fact that construction is still underway near the main sports arena of the capital. For security reasons, the competent services do not allow the sale of tickets for all sectors.

DMITRY Kommersant-MARTSENISHIN

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