Ukraine Strives for a Precious Victory over Saudi Arabia

19/06/2006 18:00

Ukraine will play its second game against Saudi Arabia for Group H of the World Cup 2006 in Hamburg on June 19. Although Saudi Arabia is said to be at full strength as it prepares for this second group match, Ukraine decided to fight to the last.

Football fans predicted before the tournament that FIFA World Cup new boys Ukraine would create a lot of breakthroughs. How ever, the team made its worst possible start to its campaign in Leipzig where it came up against the most impressive sides so far in the tournament, Spain .

Pundits said Ukraine 's 4-0 defeat against Spain equaling their heaviest defeat ever, which injuries much fans’ believe and love for the only European representative in this World Cup.

Andriy Shevchenko and his Ukrainian team-mates must get something out of their game against Saudi Arabia if they are to have any chance of surviving the group stages at the tournament as well as regaining their fans’ belief.

Ukraine Strives for a Precious Victory over Saudi Arabia ảnh 2 — (From L to R) Ukrainian midfielder Andriy Gusin, forward Shevchenko and midfielder Tymoshchuk warm up during a training session on June 18.

The duo of Shevchenko and Andri Voronin will be set to play upfront right from the beginning of the match while Serhiy Rebrov will be sent in in the second half.

Ukraine sticks well on the counter-attack strategy. However, after being unable to deploy this in the previous match against Spain , the team can not even play in this manner when its opponent is Saudi Arabia , which was considered the weakest team in Group H.

While Shevchenko’s appearance on the world football’s biggest stage has been marred by his own precarious physical condition till now, the Ukrainian strikers will get into a lot of difficulties with the Asian Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, Marcos Paqueta, Saudi Arabia coach said, “I won't be making any changes for our next match against Ukraine . Ukraine dropped three points and probably suffered a blow to their morale. I hope we can take advantage of that.”

Colors for the game
Saudi Arabia : White shirts, shorts and socks
Ukraine : Yellow shirts, shorts and socks

Probable Squad

SAUDI ARABIA
UKRAINE

21. ZAID Mabrouk

2. DOKHI Ahmed

13. SULIMANI Hussein

6. AL GHAMDI Omar

4. AL MONTASHARI Hamad

14. KARIRI Saud

8. NOOR Mohammed

18. AL TEMYAT Nawaf

16. AZIZ Khaled

9. AL JABER Sami

20. AL KAHTANI Yasser
1. SHOVKOVSKYI Oleksandr

5. YEZERSKYI Vladimir

6. RUSOL Andriy

13. CHIGRYNSKYI Dmytro

2. NESMACHNYI Andriy

14. GUSIN Andriy

4. TYMOSCHUK Anatoliy

8. SHELAYEV Oleg

21. ROTAN Ruslan

7. SHEVCHENKO Andriy
10. VORONIN Andriy