Buschan saved Ukraine from defeat, but Shevchenko spoke of “a decent game” – football.ua

Despite the defeat of Germany, Andriy Shevchenko after the match was satisfied with his team’s play. “Although we lost, we lost with dignity. It is good that the public could see the game. We miss everyone very much. It is a different football with the public.”

Startup schemes

Andriy Shevchenko made six changes compared to the match against France. As announced by the head coach, Sergei Sidorchuk and Alexander Karavaev appeared on the field from the first minutes. Of surprises: the appearance of Eduard Sobol on the left in defense and Viktor Kovalenko in the central zone. Viktor Tsygankov and Roman Yaremchuk also entered the start. The classic 4-3-3 that became 4-1-4-1 in defense.

Germany have played with three defenders in the last three games. So in a duel against Ukraine, Joachim Lev built a 3-4-2-1 with two insiders. We will talk about the peculiarities of the German scheme and its drawbacks for Ukraine. Germany’s roster is so long that Timo Werner and Kai Havertz can both be on the bench at the same time.

Ukraine struggled without a high bloc of the Germans

After Switzerland, Spain and France, many feared that Ukraine would again fall under the high pressure roller and be defeated. No, it didn’t work. First of all, Ukraine did not fall short of the goal, perhaps only two or three times. And secondly, Germany did not go into high pressure when the ball finished off our centers.

“We renounced possession of the ball, because we know that Germany with fast players cheats when pressing. Immediately there is a vertical transfer and an aggravation of 1 to 1. We are losing in this, it was necessary to change the game strategy a bit,” he said. Shevchenko after the match.

And even despite the absence of a high block, Lev’s team totally dominated the soccer field in terms of ball possession: 73% to 27%. Furthermore, the Germans completed 2.5 times as many passes: 832 (91%) versus 311 (78%). Another deplorable indicator is the average number of consecutive transmissions. So Ukraine, on average, Three successful transmission in a row. Here, as you understood, and without much pressure from Germany, we were in a deplorable situation.

As for our build, here are a few things to keep in mind:

– Mikolenko leads in number (32) and passing accuracy (94%), of which two out of three long passes were accurate.

– Buschan completed 17 assists with 82% precision, of which 7 are long transmissions.

– With the rejection of a short play and a bet on long shots, Yarmolenko and Yaremchuk won only one match. Here everything is very bad.

– Ilya Zabarny completed 24 assists with 79% accuracy. Two of the four long passes were accurate.

– A deplorable situation with Sobol passes – 68% accuracy. 4 of 9 long passes were accurate.

The compactness of Ukraine and the inconvenient scheme of the Germans.

The Blues and Yellows played with a medium block and tried to prevent Kroos and Kimmich from getting comfortable in midfield and starting their attacks.

The difficulties were caused by the scheme of Germany with two insiders, to which our coaching staff did not comply. Gnabri-Draxler-Goretska was constantly changing places and usually two of them fell in our support zone, where Sidorchuk was the only one. Gnabry and Goretzka were in the highest stopping frame on the semi flanks and not covered. The Ukrainians tried to block the transmission lines for insiders, and Malinovsky and Kovalenko regularly put pressure on Kroos and Kimmich, respectively.

The second trick is at the moment of transferring to the insiders one of the centrals went ahead and tried to get ahead. Be that as it may, and the location of the Germans caused chaos in the compact formation of the “blue and yellow”.

We remember the time when Gnabry hit his head, when Buschan pulled the “dead” punch from the German. We’ll talk about saves and Georgy’s mistake later, but now about how that attack originated. Take a look at the still images below.

Kovalenko and Malinovskiy missed the moment when it was necessary to actively meet Kimmich and Kroos, they were already deployed with the ball to face our goal. Viktor’s attention is focused on Goretska’s location between the lines, and he is guided by it. However, after a few seconds, he “transferred” Goretsk under Tsygankov’s control, and he, along with Malinovsky, promoted to Germany’s central midfielders.

As a result, Malinovskiy doesn’t have time to catch up with Kroos, Goretska shoves the ball between the lines, our two central midfielders are cut off and the interior has dispersed the most dangerous attack.

Ukraine in attack is a sadness …

Another important chapter concerns the question of our team’s attacking potential. In short, how were we going to score? And here too everything is deplorable. Some acts. Ukraine national team two hits from outside the penalty area! One of them is a penalty, the second is Tsygankov’s moment in the 60th minute.

Well our heat map also suggests that we were very rare guests in the opponent’s penalty area.

We can assume that our game plan was in tight formations and creating dangerous moments we relied on quick counterattacks. Furthermore, Germany often made mistakes in simple situations in their own half of the field or in the central zone. The blue-yellows have made 14 successful tackles and seven more interceptions. Nine times our footballers took possession of the ball in a foreign field. Another question is how to handle the ball in the last third. And here there were many problems. By the way, just one The counterattack ended with a hit of 16 attempts.

Georgy Buschan: the hero of the match, despite the mistake?

Buschan’s role is that the match score is only 1: 2, the key. Yes, Georgy committed an offensive blunder, dropping the ball into the game on the way out at the moment with the second goal. The main thing is that exit errors do not become a trend. The first game with Ghent is still remembered. However, the goalkeeper has 12 saves. Three of them are super saves: a header to Gnabry in the first half, a hit from Draskler from seven meters away immediately after the second scored, and a one-on-one approach from Gnabry himself. The WhoScored portal called Buschan the player of the match on the Ukraine national team.

I liked that after his mistake Georgy “didn’t swim”, but in the next attack he took out Draxler’s blow.

Short summary

After the match, Shevchenko said that although Ukraine had lost, they did so with dignity. A rather controversial statement, because our team had very few chances, the counterattacks were not effective and Georgy Buschan’s reaction saved us from defeat. I wonder if the score was 3: 1 or 4: 1, was the loss also perceived as “worthy”?

WhoScored and Instat statistics.