Yesterday was the last day of school for this year and my report card was crap. Anyway, two more weeks until I fly to Washington D.C. and then the Bahamas. Ukraine vs. Italy tonight and that’s pretty much it.
Archive for June, 2006
Words cannot explain how happy I feel right now and instead of boring you with a long entry let me just say that the score was 0-0, the game went into overtime; still 0-0, goes to penalties, all of Switzerland’s penalties are blocked and 3 of Ukraine’s go in, so Ukraine wins and goes on to the Quarter Finals in the World Cup where they’ll have to play Italy. We will see.
So I went out and bought an authentic, official Ukraine national soccer team jersey which cost a whopping HKD 478, which is about USD 61. I bought the home jersey: yellow with blue stripes without any name or number as that would cost me HKD 200 (about USD 25) more. I’ll post some pictures later but you can see the jersey in all of Ukraine’s matches in the World Cup.
By winning yesterday’s game against Tunisia in Group G, Ukraine has advanced to the second round of the World Cup with 6 points and second in their group. Spain has 9 points and is first. Yesterday’s game was quite boring with Ukraine playing keep-the-ball and not much else. Ukraine would have advanced with a draw but with a loss they would’ve been out of the tournament. The team didn’t really commit themselves to attacking and made sure that Tunisia didn’t have many chances to score. There was a free kick in the second half by Tunisia which seemed a bit controversial. The ball seemed to have hit Andriy Voronin’s upraised hand as it traveled through the defensive wall. The referee did not notice anything and the free kick amounted to nothing. Only a few minutes later, the ball was crossed to Shevchenko who was able run into the box and defeat both the keeper and his defender but then fell down. The referee instantly pointed to the penalty though I had a little bit of a feeling that it wasn’t deserved and it seemed like Shevchenko just tripped over his own feet. Anyway, Shevchenko with the penalty, runs up to the ball, hesitates, notices that the keeper is going to the left and hits the ball straight to the middle to make it 1-0 to Ukraine. And that’s pretty much how it ended. Ukraine had a couple of chances and so did Tunisia but neither could turn them into goals.
Yeah baby! Ukraine lost their first game against soccer-giant Spain 4-0 and this time they won against Saudi Arabia with the same scoreline. The first goal came in the 4th minute from a corner kick. The first corner was turned into another corner and through this, Maksym Kalichenko was able to deliver the ball into the box and Andriy Rusol scored. In the 36th minute, Rebrov made an absolutely beautiful shot from 30 yards out. The goalkeeper was beaten and it was a goal. 2-0 to Ukraine.
The second half was even better. Right in the 46th minute Maksym Kalinichenko swung a free kick into the box and Shevchenko headed it in to make 3-0 to Ukraine. The last goal came in the 84th minute when Kalinichenko was able to score from a pass in the box from Shevchenko. Nice finish. Kalinichenko came close again on the 90th minute but not close enough to score. Four goals is definitely going to boost Ukraine’s confidence and hopefully secure a win over Tunisia next week. This just makes my day, and the fact my exams are over.
