Why blue-yellow results are not a failure
It is likely that the match of the sixth round of the group stage of the Division B of the League of Nations against Scotland will be the last at the helm of the national team for Alexander Petrakov. Formally, the coach and his staff did not fulfill a single task – to reach the World Cup or qualify for Division A of the League of Nations. But were there prerequisites for a more successful performance under the circumstances? Even taking into account the somewhat unfair, if any in football, results of the decisive matches with Wales and Scotland?
A colleague spoke in detail about how the year was in terms of results for the blue-yellows, comparing with previous performances of the blue-yellows. Now, I’ll just once again say obvious and, perhaps, boring things: never in their history, the Ukrainian national team and its coaching staff found themselves in such a situation. And Petrakov and the team had to spend three incredibly difficult segments in extreme conditions.
How Petrakov spent the most difficult game segments
Oleksandr Petrakov was appointed head coach of the national team of Ukraine, or rather “acting” coach 12 days before the team’s match. Moreover, the coach had to play three matches in three different countries in 8 days. In general, during the year of work, the specialist and the national team had three similar playing segments.
First: September 2021. For eight days, the national team played three matches – two official, one friendly, in three different countries – Kazakhstan, Ukraine, the Czech Republic. The result is three draws. With Kazakhstan (2:2) and France (1:1) – as part of the qualifying tournament for the 2022 World Cup, with the Czech Republic – (1:1).
Outcome: blue-yellows lost points in Kazakhstan, but took them away from France. At the same time, neither the experts nor the fans had any questions about the quality of the team’s football. True, we note that at that time there was a full-fledged championship in Ukraine, and the blue-yellows could play home matches in Ukraine.
Second: June 2022. Perhaps the most difficult segment: the national team had five fights in 14 days, one match in three days. And they are all official. The result is three wins, a draw and a loss.
Our team beat Scotland in the semi-finals of the playoffs, Ireland and Armenia in the League of Nations. With the same Ireland, the blue-yellows painted the world, and lost to Wales in the final of the playoffs of the qualification.
Outcome: the most important match was lost to not the strongest opponent, whom the blue-yellows, by the way, surpassed in all game indicators. In the Nations League – a confident start, a draw with Ireland was associated with fatigue in the fifth match.
Third: September 2022. The most unfortunate segment of the three given in terms of the final result. In seven days, the blue-yellows played three matches, losing to Scotland, beating Armenia and painting the world with the same Scots.
Outcome: a draw in the main match of the autumn, tantamount to defeat – the blue-yellows could not reach Division A of the League of Nations.
How did the national team play similar segments before?
Have the national team had similar segments before? Of all the coaches of the Ukrainian national team, in the 2020/2021 season, when the coronavirus pandemic pretty much redrawn the football calendar, only Andriy Shevchenko got into similar conditions.
First, October 2020. For seven days, the national team played three matches – one friendly and two official. In the friendly, the blue-yellows defeated France (1:7), in the official, within the framework of Division A of the League of Nations, they lost to Germany (1:2) and defeated Spain (1:0). Both last matches were played in Ukraine.
Outcome: one of the most painful defeats in the history of the national team, the last points earned in Division A of the League of Nations. At the same time, it is worth noting that the composition of the national team was constantly shuffled – the coronavirus pandemic did not bypass Ukrainian football either. At the same time, the national championship was held.
Conditionally second: November 2020. Two matches – friendly and official. Both are lost. The first – Poland (0:2), the second – Germany (1:2). We call this period conditionally the second, since the match against Switzerland scheduled for November 17 (then there would have been three matches in seven days) was not played due to a violation of covid protocols by our team. Later, the team received a technical defeat.
Outcome: two defeats, relegation, albeit not for football reasons (we will not guess how the match with Switzerland would have turned out) from Division A of the League of Nations.
Third, most relevant, March 2021. Our team played three matches in eight days. We played with France on the road, with Finland and Kazakhstan at home. All matches – official as part of the selection for the 2022 World Cup, all – ended with the same score (1: 1).
Outcome: by all accounts, the national team lost four points in the matches with Finland and Kazakhstan. They could be enough for the first place in the group.
Fourth, June 2021. For nine days, the Ukrainian national team played three matches in the group stage of Euro 2020. She won one – against North Macedonia, losing to the Netherlands and Austria. Moreover, in the duel with the latter, we needed a draw to guarantee ourselves a “quiet” exit in the playoffs.
Outcome: exit from the group due to a lucky coincidence, a completely failed match with Austria – both in terms of the game and the result.
How clubs have spent similar stretches this seasone
Leading Ukrainian clubs, who continue playing in European competitions, found themselves in a similar situation this season. Dnipro-1 had two similar segments, Shakhtar and Dynamo had one each.
- Dnipro-1 three matches in 10 days (lost, two wins) – AEK-0:3, Dynamo – 3:0, Veres – 2:0
Dnipro-1 three matches in 8 days (defeat, two wins) – AZ – 0:1, Metalist 1925 – 3:0, Apollo – 3:1
Dynamo: three matches in 9 days (two defeats and a victory) – Dawn – 2:3, Fenerbahce – 1:2, Lviv – 1:0
- Shakhtar: three matches in 9 days (three wins) – Rukh – 1:0, Leipzig – 4:1, Chernomorets – 2:1
Outcome: of the three Ukrainian clubs, only Shakhtar managed to go through three matches without losses in nine days.
perestroika
Petrakov began a thankless task – the restructuring of the team. Yes, he received a good legacy from Shevchenko, introduced newcomers gradually, but 10 players made their debut in the national team over the year – a very serious indicator. Yes, most of them did not become team players, many even dropped out of the rotation over time, but the fact remains: the coaching staff poured fresh blood into the team. And let the progress of Mudrik and Pikhalenok be the merit of the club coaches and the players themselves, and Ignatenko got the opportunity to “cook” in a quality tournament and team, you must agree: to invite a player from the second division, even if the TOP-5 championship, or a player who turned out to be unnecessary to Shakhtar, you need to have courage.
It is likely that there would have been more young or new players in the national team if it were not for the factors described above – the coaching staff did not have time and space for experiments.
Glasses
We repeat: the results of Petrakov are not outstanding, but they cannot be called failures either. If we talk about the points scored, for the allotted period of time, then on average Petrakov scored 1.66 points per game. This is more than Valery Lobanovsky in his time, and almost the same as Shevchenko – 1.69. But the latter had a lot of friendly matches.
Instead of conclusions
According to insiders, the fate of the head coach of the national team will be decided after the ninth of October. Among the possible candidates for the post of mentor are Sergey Rebrov, Vicente Gomez and Alexander Petrakov. The first two have never worked with national teams and are bound by contracts with the club. The extension of the agreement with the latter will cause another portion of criticism against the UAF. But if we discard all emotions and take into account the current situation in our country, Petrakov deserves a chance to stay in the national team. The question is in what capacity.
Bogdan Gryschuk
Source: Sportarena
