A lot of amazing things are going on in the world, but people aren’t realizing what Ukraine’s Soccer Team is doing. After a very disappointing ending in the UEFA Euro 2016, the team has significantly changed with Andriy Shevchenko being assigned to his first coaching role while extending his contract till 2022. Shevchenko is a legend in the game of soccer, and he is strongly putting Ukraine in the position for success by helping them earn a place at Euro 2021 after the best qualifying campaign in their history. Also, Shevchenko is giving his knowledge to his players while they are using it on the field to produce success for the team to win. Fans and anybody else that watches soccer very often knew the positive contributions Shevchenko was going to bring to the table with the tremendous background he has with the game of soccer. Bringing him in was a key big turnaround for their success in the 2021 Euro.
The Euro is a soccer tournament with 24 teams competing, and they are split into 6 groups of 4 teams. Each team plays the other 3 teams in their group. The top 2 from each group and the best 4 third-place finishers make the round of 16, and from there, it is a single-elimination tournament to determine the champions. As the tournament mingles down, every team has to come with their best every game because once they lose, their season is over. After speaking with Coach Swift, Greenville University Men’s Soccer’s head coach, about Ukraine’s appearance in the 2021 Euro, he said, “I think Ukraine earned their spot in a difficult qualifying group that included Portugal, the defending champions, and Serbia. Any team that can come through that group undefeated has definitely earned their spot in the tournament.” With that being said, Ukraine finished in the group as the #1 seed after beating the other three opponents and going undefeated. In 2021, the tournament is initially scheduled to take place across Europe, but with COVID concerns, there are talks about moving the tournament to one or two host countries so that there will be different locations, while a lot of teams are not at the same place at the same time.
The whole Ukraine team is very talented, but Oleksandr Zinchenko is a key player for Ukraine due to the brilliant things he does for the team. While taking positions to receive passes, he is given the opportunity to create chances for other players to score or make plays as well. When asking Coach Swift who is the best team in the tournament, he says, “France is probably the most talented team, but they have one of the toughest groups. They have to play Hungary, Portugal (the defending champs), and Germany. The other team to watch is Belgium, and they have a much easier group with Denmark, Finland, and Russia.” Coach Swift also thinks Bohdan Mykhaylichenko from Anderlecht is a player to watch in the tournament. In this year’s Euro 2021, Ukraine will most definitely be a team to watch in the tournament as they continue their undefeated tournament.
Media by Paul Garrett.
