Ukraine loses to Spain, conceding a goal in the last seconds at the European Football Championship U-21

The Ukraine national youth soccer team played a draw with Spain at the European championship 2023, which takes place from June 21 to July 8 in Romania and Georgia. The match of the final, 3rd round of the group stage in Bucharest ended with a score of 2:2.

It's worth pointing out that Ruslan Rotan's charges secured a playoff spot as early as the previous round. A draw with Spain kept Ukraine from clinching the top spot. Ukraine will play in the quarterfinals with either Italy, France or Switzerland. The opponent will be determined on June 28.

The match with the Spanish team began at a low tempo. At the 5th minute, Ocheretko lost a ball to a Spanish player, which he couldn't score anyway.

At the13th minutes Nazarenko took the initiative, skipped past the opponent and gave a nice pass between two defenders, but the ball went to the corner and in the end all came to nothing.

Ukraine kept dribbling the ball in their own half, baiting the opponents and then bursting out with dangerous attacks. Our team, despite playing in the second half, looked very good.

The Spaniards tried to go to a high pressure, for which they paid. Team Ukraine, using the open areas, perfectly ran into the counterattack, but again did not succeed in completing the pass.

At the 20th minute Nesheret unsuccessfully threw the ball into the game, the Spaniard intercepted the initiative and scored a goal, but the referee did not count it, having spotted an attack on the goalkeeper.

Ukraine looked much preferable, not inferior to the formidable Spain, but occasionally made ridiculous defensive mistakes.

At the 26th minute Yevhen Saliuk unsuccessfully gave the ball to Camello and Nesheret again saved the national team.

Closer to the break the opponent began owning the initiative more and more, time after time organizing attacks on the Ukrainian goal.

In the last minutes the tempo of the game dropped. Then one and then the second team rolled the ball in their half, but this soccer was fatal for Spain. Nazarenko intercepted the ball, dragged it 40 meters, gave an accurate pass to Bogdan Vyunnik, and Donetsk Shakhtar forward who plays on loan for Grazer AK, opened the scoring.

The second half began with a failure in defense. Rikelme broke through on the flank, shot into the goal net, where Sirota, knocking the ball out, hit the leg of Zhelizko and the ball hit the net.

Spain took control of the ball, not giving us any opportunity to counterattack. It was obvious that the team made conclusions after the break and stopped to rise high, trying to somehow pressure the Ukrainian players. Ukraine was able to organize the first positional attack only att the 70th minute.

Rotan released Brazhko, Kaschuk, Sudakov and Sikan, and it played a role. At the 80th minute Sikan was brought down in his own penalty area by the Spanish goalkeeper and Sudakov scored from the penalty spot.

In the final seconds, the Ukrainian players lost concentration and conceded an offensive goal.

In the opening match Ukraine defeated Croatia 2-0. The first goal was scored by Oleksiy Kaschuk, who did it with a billiard shot, having previously beaten four defenders.

In the second round, the Ukrainians beat Romania (1-0) in the last minute thanks to an auto goal.

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