Germany dashes Ukraine's hopes for World Cup berth (11/18/01)

Germany dashes Ukraine's hopes for World Cup berth

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - A marauding German national team destroyed Ukraine's hopes for a berth in the 2002 World Cup soccer championships by pummeling the Ukrainian squad with three goals in the first 15 minutes of their deciding match on November 14 in Dortmund, Germany, and going on to win 4-1.

After tying the Germans in Kyiv 1-1, the Ukrainian team looked like it had a legitimate shot at victory, which would have given it entry to its first-ever World Cup tournament. Prior to the deciding match the talk in Ukraine was about the amount of doubt expressed on the sports pages of German newspapers about the national team's chances - a team that has a storied history in the World Cup, having qualified for all but one cup and taken three.

But the worry in Germany was for naught as a determined bunch of German players came after the visiting squad with a vengeance in the first minutes of the match, leaving the 52,000 fans in the stadium in a frenzy.

Following an initial flurry of activity around the German goal by the Ukrainians at the opening, the Germans took the lead at the four-minute mark when Michael Ballack sent the first of the three headers that would dominate the German method of scoring that evening, hurtling the ball into the Ukrainian net from a centering pass. The goal came after Ukrainian defender Andrii Nesmachnyi sloppily failed to clear the ball from the top of the penalty area.

The Germans, who controlled the ball for most of the first half, added a second goal seven minutes later, when Oliver Neuville kicked in a short rebound after Ukrainian goalkeeper Maksym Levytskyi had thwarted a scoring attempt by stopping a glancing header by Marko Rehmer of a corner kick.

A minute later the Germans almost scored again on a blazing shot by Dietmar Hamman, which Levytskyi punched out in his finest save of the game.

Rehmer succeeded on his second attempt four minutes later, when he headed home another corner kick, which was badly misjudged by the now shell-shocked Ukrainian goalie, who lurched toward the ball and then watched as it passed him on the way into the net. With only one-third of the first half of the match completed, it was basically over.

In the second half the German shellacking of the Ukrainians continued when Ballack came back with his second goal of the match at the 51-minute mark on a header from a crossing pass by Neuville.

The Ukrainians took back one goal in the final two minutes of play when their star forward, Andrii Shevchenko, scored after a classic forwarding pass from his partner Serhii Rebrov, who for unknown reasons did not enter the game until late in the second half. Also questionable, as play-by-play announcers on Ukrainian television pointed out, was why Andrii Husin did not start and did not play until the second half as well.

The disappointing finish to the two-game series came after Ukraine had made a strong showing in the initial match in Kyiv. With 83,500 fans in attendance at sprawling Olympic Stadium, half of them dressed in blue vests and half in yellow ones handed out by employees prior to the start, the atmosphere was carnival-like and upbeat.

The Ukrainians dominated the start, pressuring the German defense and barely failing to score when Andrii Vorobei's powerful kick from the top of the penalty box hit the left bar of the goal. They finally broke through for the first goal in the 18th minute when midfielder Hennadii Zubov split the goalposts after Shevchenko failed on a penalty shot from center field.

The Germans tightened their defense thereafter, and the game was played pretty much at midfield before Ballack tied the score at the 31st minute on a kick from the left corner of the penalty box.

In the second half Ukraine failed to capitalize on two opportunities that would have given them victory, first when Serhii Shyschenko sent a kick over the German goal in the 66th minute and then when German goalie Oliver Kahn stopped a cannon shot of a penalty kick from Shevchenko.

With their loss on Wednesday evening, Ukraine has now failed to qualify for World Cup play twice since independence. In 1998 the Croatian team beat the Ukrainian team to earn a place in the championship. Ukraine also failed to qualify for Euro 2000 championships when the Slovenians took a playoff for the final spot.

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