Team Ukraine Review: Yarmolenko alongside Blokhin

April 23rd, 2012
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Historical event for two hosting countries Ukraine and Poland is almost here, which led to serious preparations not only in building and reconstructions of stadiums and hotels but to extreme work inside the teams.

Getting to the list of top 50 UEFA countries Ukraine understood that they are half way prepared for the EURO 2012 football championship.

Ukraine today is a combination of a world class Shevchenko’s and Kalinichenko’s experience and new talents like Milevskiy and Yarmolenko.

The last time Ukraine showed its potential was on the 2006 FIFA World Cup where Ukraine got to the 1/8 and beat Switzerland 3:0 in after penalty session where national goalkeeper Shovkovkyi set a record by not conceding a single goal. Nevertheless following games did not result as well;
Ukraine didn’t get to play on the World Championship in 2010. It is indicative that the team loses at the end of the second half; the great example of such is a game with France where Ukraine managed to let in 2 goals in the last minutes of the game. Surely the week part of the team is quarterbacks.

Ukraine got to the list of players for 2012 EURO championship as a host country. When Oleg Blokhin, a “Golden Ball” keeper and an incumbent of UEFA Cup Winners Cup agreed to lead the team for the second time the country breathe a sigh of relief. It was Blokhin who took Ukraine to its best results and proved that Soviet experience can be used in a modern football.

Oleg Bokhin almost finished the list of players to play on EURO 2012. Among the most famous are Shevchenko, Kalinichenko, Timoshuk and Nazarenko.

Another Ukrainian “Golden Ball” keeper Shevchenko is optimistic:” EURO 2012 championship is even harder than a World Cup, still at all, I’m optimistic, because Blokhin’s reappearance helped us very much. The team changed a lot, our mentality changed. Blohkin was a great player. He was our main figure during many years. He got a golden ball and led the national team to the World Cup. His return gave us confidence”.

One of the biggest openings for Ukraine during the EURO football championship is expected to be Andriy Yarmolenko. Young and enthusiastic scorer was noticed by several clubs like Manchester United, Liverpool, Milan etc. The forward plays at Dynamo Kyiv club and a national team. He can play at almost every position, more often at the right and does an incredible amount of work on a field.

Ukrainian National team will play in a group D which has strong opponents like France and England. The first match will be played on one of 2012 EURO host stadiums, Olympiyskyi stadium with Sweden on June 11.

Ukraine has a great potential, the main aspect is how it will use it during the championship. Together with an experience and young unconquered Ukrainian temper we can expect the team to go off the group and even more.

This article courtesy of Natalia from Euro 2012 football championship.

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Euro 2012 Team Profile – England by Neil Patterson

January 10th, 2012
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Group Winners
Coach Fabio Capello
One to Watch Kyle Walker

As we approach the summer of 2012 all of our minds, well most of them at least, will turn away from the domestic football competitions within our own countries, towards the International arena for the eagerly awaited European Championship Finals, to be held in Poland and the Ukraine. Within a fortnight from now, the world will know the names of the last four teams/countries that will join the 12 nations already guaranteed a place at Euro 2012. Over the next three weeks, we shall be profiling each of the 16 finalists that will bid to become the champions of Europe until 2016.

In the next of our Euro 2012 team profiles, England come under the spotlight. England have the joint oldest national football team having been formed in 1870, they have a proud footballing history and see themselves as inventors of the game which has become their national sport. Needless to say England have been a regular feature at major international tournaments, appearing at the World Cup Finals on thirteen occasions since 1950 and making the European Championships eight times, the first being in 1968. Success however, has been harder to come by in the competitions themselves, the English have only ever won the World Cup once, famously on home ground in 1966, the closest they have come since then was an agonising penalty shoot-out defeat by West Germany in the semi-final at Italia 90. The European Championships, formerly the European Cup of Nations, has proven an even more difficult nut to crack, England’s best achievements in that tournament so far have been a third place finish in 1968 and, another penalty shoot-out defeat by the Germans in the semi-final of Euro 96, this time in front of their home fans.

Since then successive England managers, Glenn Hoddle, Kevin Keegan and Sven Goran Eriksson have fared no better, all successfully negotiating tournament qualification groups and then failing to deliver anything more than quarter final elimination at best. Following Eriksson’s unsuccessful 2006 World Cup campaign he was replaced as head coach by Steve McClaren. Under McClaren’s direction the England team slumped to a new low in modern times, failing to qualify for Euro 2008 was the first time they hadn’t reached a major international competition since their failure to qualify for the 1994 World Cup. McClaren was duly sacked and became the shortest serving England manager ever, he was replaced by Fabio Capello.

Capello arrived with an “Iron Man” reputation, he would instil the discipline required to turn England’s ageing, so called “Golden Generation” into “lean mean winning machines”, and for a while, it looked like he had. England qualified for South Africa 2010 in impressive style, with a game to spare, sealing their place with a 5-1 home win over Croatia. Things were looking rosy, however, once again at the tournament itself, England started off in shaky fashion, only just scraping through the group stage. It was clear from the very start that the problems of old hadn’t been fixed, Capello was unsure who his goalkeeper should be, Gerrard and Lampard were still being used together despite their obvious deficiency as a partnership, and the 4-4-2 system employed by Capello looked totally out of date. By the time England faced Germany in the second round, the team were at sixes and sevens, bereft of drive or confidence in themselves or each other and pretty quickly were being put to the sword by a dynamic, exciting, young German side who knew how to play together. England went home.

Since then, Capello has been forced to ring the changes and has tried to bring in some younger, fresher talent. It seems to be working at the moment with the England side qualifying unbeaten for next year’s Euros and recently defeating World and European Champions Spain in a friendly. One of the newer players in the England fold is Kyle Walker. Walker is a whippet-like right back who can play on the right of midfield too, his pace, fearlessness and ability to deliver in the final third, along with real defensive ability make him one to earmark in the summer when the tournament begins.

It is almost impossible to predict England’s chances of success in Poland and Ukraine, they have qualified well enough, but then they have done that many times before without further achievement. I don’t think Capello knows his best eleven at all and despite having a fairly deep pool of talent to choose from, he doesn’t transmit the confidence of having a clear plan as yet. The suspension of Rooney for the Group Stage is also a major headache along with the poor form of recognised central defensive pair Terry and Ferdinand. With all of these factors in mind and their abject showing in South Africa, I would be fairly surprised if England made it past the quarter finals this time around.

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Euro 2012 Team Profile – France by Neil Patterson

November 29th, 2011
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Group Winners
Coach Laurent Blanc
One to Watch Karim Benzema

As we approach the summer of 2012 all of our minds, well most of them at least, will turn away from the domestic football competitions within our own countries, towards the International arena for the eagerly awaited European Championship Finals, to be held in Poland and the Ukraine. Within a fortnight from now, the world will know the names of the last four teams/countries that will join the 12 nations already guaranteed a place at Euro 2012. Over the next three weeks, we shall be profiling each of the 16 finalists that will bid to become the champions of Europe until 2016.
The French team are the subject of our next Euro 2012 profile. The French, as a nation, have a proud footballing tradition going back to 1904 when they contested their first match. As you might expect then, France have a fairly illustrious history in International competition, taking part in thirteen World Cup Finals, finishing third in 1958 and 1986 and winning the tournament in 1998 on home soil. There have been two “Golden Generations” in the recent history of French football which have both delivered major honours. The first was in the 1980s, it included the “Magic Square” of Platini, Tigana, Giresse and Luis Fernandez, which terrorised defences, this team was unlucky not to secure at least one World Cup-beaten by West Germany in the semi-finals both in 1982 and 1986. It did, however, triumph at the European Championships held in France in 1984, France’s first success in a major tournament, with Michel Platini scoring a tournament record nine goals. After a period of decline, which saw them fail to qualify for three of the next four major tournament, France found a second “Golden Generation”. Including players such as Zidane, Thuram, Henry and Trezeguet, the squad added to World Cup success in 1998 by going on to be crowned European Champions in Holland two years later-Trezeguet scoring the Golden Goal winner to beat the Italians 2-1.

Much has happened in to France since then, a turbulent decade has seen France fail to emerge from the Group Stage in three of the last four tournaments, and internal disagreements and personality clashes, between playing staff and management, culminated in the team’s refusal to train during a mutinous 2010 World Cup campaign. As things are Les Bleus have qualified for Euro 2012 by right as group winners, however they are somewhat lucky to be in that position for my money. An unconvincing set of performances which began with a defeat by Belarus in Paris, ended with France scraping through after being awarded a remarkably soft, late penalty against Bosnia-Herzogovina ; but for this decision, France would have been in the play-offs and Bosnia would be through to the tournament proper. Having said that, Les Bleus only lost once and conceded only four goals in the ten games, which I suppose is to be expected for a team managed by Laurent Blanc.

Looking at the current France squad there are some very talented players there, for example Samir Nasri and of course Frank Ribery, however , the squad is lacking depth and experience, especially in defence and up front. The goal scoring responsibilities will fall very much upon the shoulders of Karim Benzema, the young Real Madrid striker. Benzema was controversially left out of the squad for South Africa after being caught up in a scandal before the tournament so will be keen to make an impression this time round. After a rocky beginning, he has settled well in La Liga and is now a regular first choice for manager Jose Mourinho. He is starting to find his best form with six goals in nine games so far this season. With pace, strength, skill and composure Benzema is a match for any defence and all of France will be hoping he can keep his form going and bring it into the Euros with him, if he doesn’t, France may struggle.

France are a work in progress after all the changes brought about by the South Africa debacle, and although Blanc has done a reasonable job in steadying the ship and bringing in new players, doubts still remain over the togetherness of the squad. A favourable draw may see the French qualify for the quarter finals in second place, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll even make it that far, I certainly don’t see them progressing past that stage, there are too many teams with more to offer.

Neil Patterson

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Euro 2012 Team Profile – Sweden by Neil Patterson

November 26th, 2011
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Best Group Runners Up
Coach Erik Hamren
One to Watch Tobias Hysen

As we approach the summer of 2012 all of our minds, well most of them at least, will turn away from the domestic football competitions within our own countries, towards the International arena for the eagerly awaited European Championship Finals, to be held in Poland and the Ukraine. Within a fortnight from now, the world will know the names of the last four teams/countries that will join the 12 nations already guaranteed a place at Euro 2012. Over the next three weeks, we shall be profiling each of the 16 finalists that will bid to become the champions of Europe until 2016.
The next of our team profiles for Euro 2012 takes us to Sweden. Sweden’s history in qualifying for the major international tournaments is impressive, having qualified for no fewer than eleven World Cup Finals, finishing third in 1958 in Sweden and in 1994 when the tournament was staged in the United States. As hosts of the 1992 European Championships, Sweden qualified automatically, marking their début in the tournament with some fine performances, topping a group that included eventual champions Denmark, in the end they were defeated 2-3 by a newly unified German side. Since then Sweden have gone to appear in the European Championships on three further occasions, 2000, 2004 and 2008, only once getting past the group stage in 2004, when they lost to the Dutch after Edwin Van der Sar saved Olaf Mellberg’s penalty in the shootout, the game having finished goalless after extra time.

Sweden have qualified for Euro 2012 by right as the best runners up from the group stages, garnering more points from their qualifying games than any other second placed team. Their formidable form during the campaign saw the Swedes rack up 24 points from ten games, a record of eight victories and two defeats, including a 3-2 triumph over group winners the Netherlands in their final match. This victory marked the end of Holland’s remarkable record of 17 successive wins in qualifying and secured Sweden a points total that would have won three out of the six, six team groups.

On this, their fifth appearance in the European Championships to date, Sweden will be looking to improve on their recent record in major competitions. Failure to qualify for World Cup 2010 was seen as a disaster and resulted in the replacement of long-time coach Lars Lagerback with Erik Hamren. Under his tutelage Sweden look refreshed, he’s brought in a couple of players who had been on the fringes under the old regime to good effect, such as Alexander Gerndt, a skilful forward known for his speed, hard work and set piece wizardry. As well as bringing the new, Hamren’s arrival seems to have rejuvenated and even reinvigorated some of the more experienced campaigners, such as Kim Kallstrom and Johan Elmander, both playing a major part in Sweden’s successful qualifying campaign. A lesser known name but perhaps one to look out for this summer is that of Tobias Hysen of IFK Goteburg. Hysen is an attacking midfielder come striker, son of Glen Hysen, who Liverpool fans of a certain age will remember, formerly a fringe player; he has been a regular in the squad under Hamren’s stewardship. Having moved to Goteburg from Sunderland in 2007, Hysen has an excellent goals per game ratio, 49 in 114 appearances, and he is now replicating that form at international level with six goals from his 18 caps.
Sweden have a good chance of progressing into the knockout stages in Poland and Ukraine, their qualification results and performances were impressive and the new coach seems to really have the players motivated and playing at something like their best. The experience contained within the team, especially its spine, will be vital; Isaksson, Mellberg, Svensson (vc) and Ibrahimovic (c) have nearly 400 caps between them. Further progress could be possible but it will depend on the form of the mercurial Zlatan Ibrahimovic, if he is firing on all cylinders then there is a chance that Sweden should reach the semi-finals and emulate the success of 1992.

Neil Patterson

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Euro 2012 Team Profile – Ukraine by Neil Patterson

November 25th, 2011
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Co-Host Nation
Coach Oleg Blokhin
One to Watch Andriy Yarmalenko

As we approach the summer of 2012 all of our minds, well most of them at least, will turn away from the domestic football competitions within our own countries, towards the International arena for the eagerly awaited European Championship Finals, to be held in Poland and the Ukraine. Within a fortnight from now, the world will know the names of the last four teams/countries that will join the 12 nations already guaranteed a place at Euro 2012. Over the next three weeks, we shall be profiling each of the 16 finalists that will bid to become the champions of Europe until 2016.

Following on from our profile of Poland, we come to the co-hosts Ukraine. Ukraine achieved independence as a nation following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. As a result, they only began to compete internationally as a country in late 1994, having failed to achieve recognition in time to take part in qualification for the ’94 World Cup in the U.S.A. . Persuading their best players to play for the new state was a difficult task as many initially chose to play for Russia , the direct successor to the old U.S.S.R. team. For a greater understanding of why this happened, it is worth noting that of the Soviet team that started the final of Euro 88 against Holland in West Germany, seven from eleven were Ukrainian.

From these inauspicious beginnings, the Ukraine have improved steadily as a footballing nation, producing such fine talents as Serhiy Rebrov, Anatoliy Tymoshchuk , not to mention national hero Andriy Shevchenko, who at one time was rated by many within football to be the best striker in Europe. These players, however, could not bring about successful qualification for major tournaments, although they did come close, missing out in the playoffs for Euro 2000, World Cup 98 and World Cup 2002. Success did come at last, and it was current coach Oleg Blokhin (his recall as coach bodes well this time round), in his first stint in charge of the national team, who delivered it. Qualification for World Cup 2006 was followed by a fine run to the quarter finals where Ukraine came up short against an Italy side who would go on to win the tournament, losing 3-0. Since then, failure to qualify for Euro 2008 was followed up by another play-off defeat, this time to Greece, which denied them a place in South Africa last summer.

As co –hosts Ukraine qualified by right for Euro 2012, like Poland they are Championship debutants and, like Poland, their form going into the tournament is difficult to assess given the lack of competitive matches they have played recently. The current squad is interesting, however, as it seems to have a good blend of youth and experience; for example veterans such as Tymoshchuk and Shevchenko are still there with more than two hundred caps between them, but there are several youngsters within the squad who may just add that pace and guile. Andriy Yarmalenko in particular can be singled out as one to keep your eye on in the summer, the 22 year old Dynamo Kiev attacker has been hailed in some parts as “the new Shevchenko”, high praise indeed. As this tag suggests, Yarmalenko possesses a great change of pace and an eye for goal, scoring eight in fourteen appearances so far this season for his club and five goals in fifteen caps for the national side. Home advantage will be important for the Ukrainians and if they can draw inspiration from what is bound to be an electric atmosphere, they may have the tools to progress to the knockout stages. It will not be easy though!

Neil Patterson

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We welcome any links to blog articles – however they may be reproduced or copied only with the prior written permission of http://e-u-r-o-2012.com.
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Subsequent comments to the blog articles that appear on the site are not the opinion of ‘EURO 2012 Blog’ but only of the comment writer.
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