Well Ukraine deserve their lead going into the second leg on Tuesday, but there was actually enough in that game to suggest some sort of encouragement for Slovenia. The way Ukraine seemed to back off towards the end was mildly concerning from their point of view, even if they were pretty safe with their 2-0 lead. Yarmolenko was the primary danger, with Konoplyanka chipping in from the other flank.
Cheers for reading - we’ll have Sweden v Denmark for you shortly.
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Full-time: Ukraine 2-0 Slovenia
...but the corner comes to nothing, and it’s all over.
90 mins +3: Last chance for Slovenia, as they toss a free-kick from deep into the area, but it goes behind and a corner is somewhat dubiously awarded...
90 mins + 1: Changes for both teams - Slovenia bring Zlatan Ljubijankič on for Novakovic, while Ukraine withdraw Yarmolenko in favour of Karavayev. Three minutes of added time to come.
90 mins: Great chance for Konoplyanka, running at pace at the Slovenian defence who look absolutely terrified of him, but the finish is poor and is skewed wide.
89 mins: The crowd start singing the Ukraine national anthem. The Ukraine president, in the crowd and who has waved his country’s flag around like a frantic cheerleader after both goals, stands and joins them, hand over heart.
87 mins: Jokic clips a cross to the back stick, but Novakovic stumbles and tumbles before he can get to it. He half claims a foul, but nothing doing there.
85 mins: Shevchuk concedes a throw, but has an absolutely sensational, toys out of the pram, kid who doesn’t want to eat his greens tantrum on the touchline. He jumped up and down and everything.
84 mins: Booking for Rakitskiy, who takes out Pecnik as the Slovenian tries to force something with a counter attack. Cynical, but he still complains.
83 mins: Sub for Ukraine - Seleznyov comes of, and Artem Kravets is on.
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82 mins: Pyatov and Fedetskiy almost get into a frightful pickle in defence, but eventually Ukraine get the ball clear, Yarmolenko dashes into attack and squares the ball to Malinovsky, who lines up a shot but it’s low and without power, and Handanovic saves.
81 mins: Ukraine have gone a little flat in the last ten minutes or so. Like they’re perfectly happy with the 2-0 but aren’t quite sure how to defend it properly. Their fluidity from earlier has gone, and if they’re not careful some of that uncertainty in defence might bite them.
80 mins: Sub for Ukraine - Garmash is off, and Ruslan Malinovsky is on in his place.
78 mins: A bit of pressure now from Slovenia, with a cross from the left causing a moment of disquiet in the Ukraine defence, but nothing much more than that. Ukraine try to counter with a big, booming ball downfield to Yarmolenko, but his first touch, on his chest, is too heavy and the attack breaks down.
77 mins: Slovenia win a free-kick, and after nearly a minute of arguing like a collection of children, it’s all something of an anti-climax as Pyatov claims the cross with some ease.
74 mins: Half chance for Slovenia, as Kampl works some space on the left and clips it inside to Jokic in the area, but his shot flies way over.
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73 mins: Another change for Slovenia, and Birsa comes off, replaced by Nejc Pecnik. And, shall we say, it doesn’t look like Birsa necessarily agrees with the decision and lets the coach know, with some gusto.
72 mins: Ukraine work a corner short, and after a little while of what can only be described as ‘titting about’ from Yarmolenko, the ball loops over into the box and falls to Khacheridi, who volleys over the bar.
69 mins: And that really should be three. Seleznyov finds himself away in the left channel in space, space, space and he has time to pick his spot, but his effort thunks against the post and is put behind for a corner. The striker then looks as if he’s going to burst into tears at the cruel unfairness of it all. Football, this game, life...
67 mins: Unfortunate moment as a stray boot from Kurtic goes straight into Rybalka’s, well....his balls. Ouch.
66 mins: Chance for Ukraine, as a free kick is thrown into the box but Seleznyov goes down for reasons unclear, then springs back to life when the half-cleared ball looks like it’s going to come back into the box.
63 mins: A change for Slovenia, and interestingly it’s Josip Ilicic coming off, replaced by Roman Bezjak. We can expect some freaky dancing, presumably.
62 mins: Seleznyov is lucky not to be booked after knocking away an attempted clearance with his hands, like a rugby player charging down a kick from a full-back.
60 mins: Ukraine flow forwards again. More goals in this one, you’d think. A Klitschko brother is in the crowd - not sure which one. The one that’s big and looks mean. You know who I mean.
58 mins: Ukraine should be three up. They counter through Konoplyanka down the left, he squares to Fedetskiy who clips a cross to the back post where Garmash is waiting, he heads powerfully at goal but Handanovic just manages to get a hand in the way. It rebounds to Seleznyov but he handles the ball, and the chance goes. Garmash really, really should have scored that - a downward header would’ve done the trick.
57 mins: Slovenia try to get back into the game straight away through Kampl on the left, but he struggles to create anything.
54 mins: Beautiful play by Ukraine. Yarmolenko slips the ball between the left- back and centre-half for Fedetskiy barreling forwards from right-back, he plays across for Seleznyov who slides the ball into the empty net. He looks around for the linesman’s flag, which doesn’t go up but it probably should have, with the striker just in front of the ball when it was played. Tight, but probably a mistake there.
GOAL! Ukraine 2-0 Slovenia (Seleznyov 54)
Again, a lovely move and that should be that for tonight.
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53 mins: Slovenia seem to be paying a bit more attention to Yarmolenko in this half, which seems sensible. He gets the ball on the right, but is doubled up on by Kampl and Jokic, then a few moments later by Birsa and Jokic.
51 mins: Mexican wave. Take it all back Mr Birtles, the game has indeed gone.
50 mins: Slovenia build a promising attack, and Kurtic has the ball through the middle, with space suddenly opening up in front of him to line up and take a shot as Ukraine defenders back, back, back off, but the effort he tries is skewed massively wide.
48 mins: Co-commentator Garry Birtles has been complaining like someone’s grandpa about how soft players are these days, “the game’s gone” etc, and after another of these whines, following an admittedly suspect free-kick awarded to Slovenia, the commentator rather wearily notes “That’s not the last time you’ll hear Garry Birtles say ‘the game’s gone.’” Poor bloke.
46 mins: The second half, it is underway. Ukraine get us started, and it’s a scrappy first minute, with neither team managing to hold onto the thing for more than a couple of touches/passes.
Splendid old affair, this. Ukraine deserve their lead, but there are enough iffy moments in their defence to suggest that Slovenia still have a more than solid chance of nicking something. Plus, there’s enough needle to suggest that these two don’t like each other. Lovely stuff.
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Half-time: Ukraine 1-0 Slovenia
Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
45 mins: Another situation for the referee to deal with, as Jokic leads with the arm somewhat when going for a header with Sydorchuk, but the man with the whistle settles for a word with Slovenia captain Cesar. One minute of injury time to be added.
44 mins: A minute or so after Seleznyov embarrasses himself by backing into a defender and throwing himself forwards, trying to get his opponent booked, Krhin does receive a yellow for tugging the shirt of the Ukraine forward.
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41 mins: Novakovic is very nearly in, as Slovenia launch a counter, Khacheridi doesn’t deal with a ball over the top but Rakitskiy does well to swoop in, snuff out the danger and save his pal’s bacon.
39 mins: Konoplyanka manages a decent corner from the left, curling and fizzing one into the near-post, where Garmash gets a head to it but Handanovic almost nonchalantly flips it over the bar, like a man absent-mindedly plucking a rogue leaf from a branch while walking past a tree.
38 mins: Yarmolenko, who has been superb so far, again gets down the right and clips the ball into the middle. It’s knocked back to Rybalka, who shoots from range but it takes a massive deflection, meaning Handanovic can only stand, wait and hope. Luckily for him, it scoots just wide of the post.
36 mins: Bookings apiece for Novakovic and Khacheridi after an aerial disagreement leads to an accidental looking knee in the back of the head from the Slovenian to his opponent, which then leads to one of those daft head-to-head pushing things, like a pair of impotent stags stripped of their antlers. Still, a tussle to keep an eye on.
35 mins: Flying save by Handanovic, after more good work on the right by Yarmolenko feeds the ball inside to Rybalka, who shoots from range but the Inter keeper dives full length and pushes it away. Whiff of the Hollywood about that, mind.
33 mins: Novakovic is lucky to get away without a card of some description after shoving a hand into Khacheridi’s face. Some more pernickety referees might have shown a red, there.
32 mins: You get the feeling that Ukraine could be here for the taking, but Slovenia can’t quite get their attacks right. Another one dies as Birsa takes a heavy touch out on the left, and the ball goes out for a throw.
29 mins: Huge chance for Novakovic, as Slovenia start to pick at some of the growing holes in the Ukraine defence. Birsa gets away down the left channel, cuts it across to the strike in plenty of space, but Novkovic takes one of the worst first touches you’re likely to see, the ball rebounding off his feet like he’s Wayne Rooney in one of his bad spells. If he’d killed that, he would’ve had a simple shot at goal, surely.
28 mins: End-to-end stuff here. Ukraine are almost in as the ball pings around the Slovenia penalty box, but Handanovic just manages to come out and claim ahead of Seleznyov.
27 mins: Great chance for Garmash, after Konoplyanka dances down the left and plays inside, finding his teammate in the box, but he can’t get any power in the left-footed shot. Then, Slovenia counter with some vigour, Birsa crossing from the left to the back post where Novakovic nods it down for Ilicic in some space, but he fires the half-volley over the bar.
25 mins: Ukraine going for the throat now. Yarmolenko tries to thread a pass down the right for Fedetskiy, but Jokic muscles him out. Garmash then goes through Kampl with a hard but not massively dangerous challenge, although a free kick is given anyway.
22 mins: Ukraine are in the lead thanks to a superb bit of skill. Konoplyanka takes another poor corner but it goes straight back to him. He fizzes a better corner over that Handanovic punches out, but only as far as Yarmolenko in the area who, partly thanks to some iffy defending and partly thanks to a brilliant drop of the shoulder, leaves three defenders on their bottoms then passes the ball into the far corner of the net. Fine work, sir.
GOAL! Ukraine 1-0 Slovenia (Yarmolenko 22)
What a delicious finish.
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19 mins: Hmmm. Seleznyov goes into the book, protesting all the way, but from the looks of a replay he half-turned and landed a quick elbow in Cesar’s much. It wasn’t a nose-breaker, but he did seem to have a little look. Not an ‘unavoidable clash thanks to trying to gain leverage job, there. Oddly, Cesar limps off the pitch after receiving treatment - might have twisted the old ankle.
18 mins: Very weird moment as Seleznyov runs down the right with a couple of Ukraine defenders near but not touching distance and he just stops, for no apparent reason. He must have heard a whistle, but it wasn’t the ref’s. Weird.
17 mins: Konoplyanka takes the resultant corner, but his cross doesn’t beat the first man. That could become a theme.
16 mins: Rybalka tries genuinely the worst effort you’re likely to see from about 35 yards out, so bad was it that it barely went 15 yards, skimming to the edge of the box. However, it turns into a half-decent pass as Garmash collects, lays it back to Fedetskiy whose effort is deflected behind.
13 mins: Some disagreement out on the pitch as Cesar legs up Garmash, an offence not initially spotted by the referee but the linesman eventually flags. Konoplyanka eventually swings the cross over but Garmash heads it over, all the while kvetching to the ref for some reason or other.
11 mins: Free kick for Slovenia out on the right, a terrible delivery that shouldn’t beat the first man, but Rakitskiy makes a fierce hash of a fairly simple clearance and is pretty lucky to get away with it as he’s bailed out by some colleagues.
9 mins: Another fizzing cross from Ukraine, as Konoplyanka cuts in from the left in that sort of Arjen Robben mirror image of his and whelps one over with his right foot. It’s headed behind, and the resultant corner, also taken by the Sevilla winger, is pawed clear by Handanovic.
7 mins: Slovenia come close to a chance again, but from Birsa’s pass through Novakovic is about half a yard offside. Good job for Ukraine he was too, as he would’ve been away on goal there.
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6 mins: Jokic fires a long throw into the area looking for Novakovic, but he can’t bring it under control and Ukraine usher the ball back to Pyatov in nets. The Slovenians have had plenty of attacking play in this nascent game so far.
4 mins: Slovenia try to create something, but aside from committing a surprising number of men forwards (surprising, that is, for an away team in the away leg of a playoff) they create nothing. They are pressing very high though, forcing Khacheridi to hump a long, fairly aimless ball forwards instead of trying to build from the back.
2 mins: Ukraine attack straight away, Shevchuk taking a throw high up on the left, he then receives the ball back from Seleznyov and fires in a brutal cross, but Yarmolenko at the back post just can’t quite get a foot to the ball. Hell of a cross though, that.
1 min: And we’re away. Slovenia get us started...at the second attempt: scenes straight away after some of their players prematurely advanced into the Ukraine half. Haven’t seen that in a while.
The players observe a minute of silence, for Paris...
This is the most powerful image I've seen so far pic.twitter.com/OP0PntbBPk
— Will Unwin (@Will_Unwin) November 14, 2015
Sorry to report that the referee didn’t kiss the ball as he picked it up on the way out to the pitch...
I just had to rewind @BBCMOTD. Yes, the referee did kiss the ball. pic.twitter.com/B98kafKEZs
— Christian Machowski (@Christian_ESEM) November 1, 2015
The teams are in the tunnel. The home side have the better tracksuit tops. Advantage Ukraine.
Quick reminder that Ukraine have appeared in five previous playoff games for a place at a major tournament, and they’ve lost them all.
Oof.
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Quick line about the referee in this game, Mr Eriksson from Sweden, who as you may or may not know is a millionaire just doing this for the yucks. You might wonder about a man who gets his yucks from being a football referee, that there surely must be other ways to have fun. BASE jumping, for example. Or smacking yourself in the face with a big bit of wood. But still, each to their own and all that.
Eriksson earned his fortune after selling a stake in a Swedish sports rights firm for a pleasant £6million. Which is lovely for him. “I’ve had a fantastic life as a businessman,” he said a few years ago, “but since 2011, I’ve dedicated myself to being a professional referee and I’m having the time of my life.”
Of course, as with any referee people at various points have queued up to criticise him, a list of people that coincidentally tallies with teams he’s given decisions against. Gordon Strachan, displeased with the way he handled a Rangers game back in 2009, said he “shouldn’t get another game in the Champions League... he is not good enough.” Arsenal weren’t particularly impressed when he only gave Robert Lewandowski a yellow card for elbowing Laurent Koscielny in 2013, while he was the man in the middle that Manuel Pellegrini accused of “not being impartial” after Manchester City’s defeat to Barcelona in 2013. So...all good fun.
Team news
Ukraine
Pyatov, Khacheridi, Shevchuk, Fedetskiy, Rakitskiy, Konoplyanka, Sydorchuk, Rybalka, Garmash, Yarmolenko, Seleznyov. Subs: Boyko, Shevchenko, Pylyavskyi, Kamenyuka, Tymoshchuk, Petriak, Malinovskiy, Guzev, Karavayev, Budkivskiy, Gladkiy, Kravets
Slovenia
Handanovic, Brecko, Cesar, Ilic, Jokic, Kurtic, Birsa, Kampl, Krhin, Ilicic, Novakovic. Subs: Vidmar, Oblak, Andjelkovic, Samardzic, Struna, Lazarevic, Kirm, Rotman, Pecnik, Verbic, Ljubjakic.
Referee: Jonas Eriksson (Luleå, Sweden)
Preamble
Historically speaking, these two are already at something of a disadvantage, even being in these playoffs. Indeed, all teams in these playoffs are. Since the playoffs were first introduced for the European Championships for Euro 1996, 14 teams have made it through to the finals via this method. Of those, nine have failed to make it out of their groups, three more have gone out in the next round, and two - Holland in 2004 and Portugal in 2012 - made it to the semi-finals. So with admittedly a fairly small sample size, the chances are neither of these teams are going to launch an unlikely challenge for the title in France next year.
Of course, that may well seem obvious - teams in the playoffs are usually of lesser quality, so are less likely to succeed in the tournament, but the list of the 14 does include the Dutch (twice), Spain, Portugal and England (stop laughing). Obviously, even if these two teams had qualified automatically, then they still would have been ‘outsiders’ at best to win the thing.
But, y’know, still. Of greater importance to both Ukraine and Slovenia right now is just winning this game, or at least not losing it, setting themselves up for a decent crack at the second game on Tuesday. This is the first time these teams have met since a similar game back in 1999, in which the following happened, taken from our ‘10 things to look out for in the international week’ feature: with one deliberate* mistake corrected
Play-offs are a spicy business at the best of times but Ukraine v Slovenia comes with it a 16-year-old grudge, a generation of revenge simmering just beneath the surface. For these two teams also met each other in a play-off to reach Euro 2000, in the days when Ukraine had Andriy Shevchenko and Sergei Rebrov up front and were thus strong favourites but were shocked by an opportunistic Slovenia side who pulled themselves back from the brink in both legs. The second game was played in faintly absurd conditions, a combination of the snow in Kiev and a white ball making actually figuring out what was happening on the pitch tricky, to say the least.
Ukraine were going through with an away goal from the first leg (which they lost 2-1) and a 1-0 lead in the second, but 12 minutes from time Miran Pavlin popped up to force home a rebound from a free-kick. The conditions meant it was unclear to the viewer exactly what had happened, but the wild celebrations of the Slovenians offered a hint. Like last time, Ukraine are favourites with an exciting side, but like last time an upset is more than plausible. Fortunately, unlike last time, no snow is forecast for Lviv on Saturday.
Slovenia coach Srekco Katanec seemed fairly bullish about the whole thing, anyway. “I have watched all of Ukraine’s qualifying matches,” he bragged before the game. “They have a technically sophisticated and robust team, but their problems are maybe in defence and picking up bookings.” His opposite number Mykhailo Fomenko was a little more downbeat, dwelling on his country’s failure to ever win a playoff game before, something that appears to be weighing on his mind. Chip up, Mykhailo.
So, a bit of history, two fairly well-matched teams and the inevitable spice that comes with these affairs. Should be good.
Kick-off: 17.00 GMT
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