Match report: Ukraine 0-0 Belgium
Jonathan Wilson reports from the Stuttgart, where Ukraine weren’t quite good enough to get the goal that would have kept them in the tournament and eliminated Belgium.
Ukraine: Maliovskyi and Sudakov both had late chances to win the match for Ukraine, the former with a wonderful bit of opportunism and quick-thinking at a corner. Belgium’s fans will be happy their side have advanced to the knockout stages along with Slovakia and Romania, but they will not be at all impressed with what they have seen from their team today.
Full time: Ukraine 0-0 Belgium
Group E: A good game ends scoreless, which Belgium finish second and will play France in the next round. Ukraine become the first team in Euros history to go out at the group stages despite having four points. That is desperately unlucky.
90+4 min: Ukraine have a goal-kick. Trubin gets the ball launched but Dovbyk’s control lets him down. Slovakia and Romania have drawn in Frankfurt and now it’s all over in Stuttgart too, where Ukraine have gone out.
90+3 min: Belgium win a corner, which they will be in no great hurry to take. De Bruyne plays it short to Bakayoko, who wins another corner.
90+2 min: Chance! Sudakov gallops through the middle and finds himself with a clear sight of the Belgian goal. He fires straight at Casteels, who almost certainly can’t believe his luck. Where were Belgium’s defenders?
90+1 min: We’ll have four minutes of added time. Romelu Lukaku goes off and is replaced by Lois Opendo.
90 min: Timothy Castagne blocks heroically, stopping a Malinovskyi piledriver that was whistling towards the Belgium goal at some rate of knots.
88 min: Vertonghen blocks a Manat cross after the substitute had been played down the wing by Yarmolenko. Belgium break upfield in numbers and Mangala fires wide. That’s atrocious from Belgium, who also had De Bruyne, Carrasco and Lukaku up the pitch.
86 min: A Lukaku cross is put out for a Belgium corner. They take it short and Ukraine clear their lines.
85 min: Malinovskyi robs Mangala of the ball and Ukraine advance on the Belgium penalty area once again. The Belgians are inviting them on, which is an extremely dangerous game to play.
82 min: Ukraine corner. Malinovskyi comes this close to whipping his inswinger past Casteels at the unmanned near post. The Belgium goalkeeper has to scramble across his line to claw the ball away.
81 min: Ukraine switch to a back four, bringing on Andriy Yarmolenko for his 122nd cap. He replaces Svatok, who’s been outstanding. Ukraine have to go for this now!
79 min: After good work from Sudakov, Dovbyk fires into the side-netting from a tight angle, prompting some of his compatriots in the stands to cheer. They thought he’d scored.
78 min: Belgium substitution: Bakayoko on for Doku, who has not really had one of his better games. Ukraine’s right-back Oleksandr Tymchyk has kept him on a very tight leash.
75 min: Faes denies Dovbyk again, diving in to block on the edge of his own six-yard box as the ball dropped at the striker’s feet from a long throw-in.
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73 min: Yannick Carrasco stings the palms of Trubin with a shot from distance and Ukraine break upfield. Wout Faes gets back to shepherd Dovbyk towards the touchline before he can square the ball for Manat. It was heart-in-mouth time for the Belgians.
73 min: Jeremy Doku fails to pick out Lukaku with another cross, sending the ball behind the striker.
72 min: Ukraine triple-substitution: Stepanenko, Manat and Malinovskyi on for Shaparenko, Brazhko and Yaremchuk.
68 min: Tymchyk and Onana are both fit to continue and play resumes. The former is called straight back in to action to head the ball clear from his own penalty area.
68 min: Carrasco is played through on goal by Lukaku, but Tymchyk gets back to make a brilliant recovery tackle, injuring himself in the process. At the other end of the pitch, Amadou Onana is lying on the ground hurt.
66 min: Belgium aren’t showing much urgency either, it should be said. Maybe they fancy their chances against the French, who haven’t been particularly impressive thus far in these Euros.
64 min: There’s suprisingly little urgency from Ukraine, giving what’s currently riding on the win for them. Lukaku advances on their penalty area with Svatok backpedalling in front of him and unleashes a low shot. It’s saved comfortably by Trubin.
63 min: Belgium ring the changes. Orel Mangala and Yannick Carrasco come on for Youri Tielemans and Leandro Trossard, who haven’t played particularly well today.
60 min: We hit the hour mark and Ukraine need a goal or Mykolenko isn’t the only player of theirs whose tournament will be over today. Belgium are there for the taking but know a draw will send them through. However, they need to win if they want to avoid France in the next round.
58 min: While Zinchenko waits to come on, Belgium almost score through Jeremy Doku. Mykolenko should have stayed on the pitch and gone down!
57 min: Mykolenko seems to have aggravated the ankle injury that kept him out of Ukraine’s first two games, so I suspect his tournament is over. He walks off applauding his nation’s fans and will be replaced by another Premier League player in Oleksandr Zinchenko.
54 min: Castagne and Trossard combine to win a corner off Mykolenko, who signals to the bench that he’s injured. He’s not so injured that he can’t block Doku’s shot when the ball drops his way from the corner. Good defending.
52 min: Svatok clears for Ukraine as Belgium break upfield but there’s no sign of Lukaku when Doku squares the ball across the face of the Ukraine goal.
Moments later, Belgium win a corner through Tielemans. The ball drops for him and his long range shot takesd a nick off Svatok’s foot on its way wide. Anthony Taylor awards a goal-kick, despite Tielemans’ correct insistence that it should be a corner.
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50 min: Vertonghen and Theaste tidy up tat the back for Belgium as Ukraine send a long ball their way from deep. They don’t tidy up very well, however, and Ukraine have a throw-in deep in the Belgium half.
47 min: Kevin De Bruyne plays a wonderful reverse pass inside to Trosard, who plays it wide to Tielemans as Belgium pile on the pressure early in this second half. Their attack eventually breaks down when Theate sends a wayward pass straight out of play for a goal-kick. He was trying to play De Bruyne in behind the Ukraine defence and his captain was far from impressed with the delivery. Not everyone is as good as you, Kevin!
47 min: Jeremy Doku gives Tymchyk tthe slip but is pushed over by the Ukraine full-back before he can make good his escape down the left wing.
Second half: Ukraine 0-0 Belgium
46 min: It’s all to play for in Stuttgart, where play resumes with Ukraine on the ball. There are no changes in personnel on either side.
As things stand: Ukraine are heading out of the tournament on four points, which would be desperately unlucky. They need to find a winner.
An email: “I’m enjoying this Theate-rical adaptation of Tintin,” writes Peter Oh. “Let’s just hope that the VAR team don’t do a Thomson and Thompson!”
An email: “Watching Belgium in their Tintin kits, it just occurred to me that the linesmen only need bowler hats to join the fun as Thomson and Thompson,” writes Jeff. “Anthony Taylor could slap on a wig and a comedy beard and be Captain Haddock, shouting out ‘Blistering barnacles’ or a bunch of swear word characters every time he hands out a card.”
Credit to Ukraine: They’ve done a real number on Belgium’s wingers and restricted their opponents to just one decent chance, which was spurned by Romelu Lukaku. They’ll be happy with their performance but might feel they should be in front. Yaremchuk needs to be more selfish in front of goal.
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Half-time: Ukraine 0-0 Belgium
The deadlock remains unbroken and Belgium have a lot to sort out during this interval. With Doku and Trossard hugging the touchlines and doing nothing useful, Kevin De Bruyne is unwilling to drop back and defend. The upshot? There’s a gaping hole in their midfield, which Ukraine are exploiting.
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45+2 min: Sudakov wins the ball for Ukraine in midfield, down near the technical areas. They advance upfield, albeit very slowly. The ball is eventually crossed towards Dovbyk from the left but he’s penalised for offside. It’s half-time.
45 min: De Bruyne shoots from the edge of the Ukraine penalty area but is unable to beat Trubin, who saves comfortably at his near post.
43 min: Wout Faes gets booked for a foul on somebody or other and Ukraine have a free-kick in a good position wide on the left. Like De Bruyne before him, Sudakov tries to catch out the opposition goalkeeper with a shot when he was expecting a cross but his effort is fairly feeble.
42 min: Shaparenko spurns a glorious shooting opportunity in favour of squaring the ball to ther far post for Artem Dovbyk. He fails to find his teammate and Ukraine’s best chance of the game goes to waste.
40 min: There’s a break in play as Georgy Sudakov gets treatment after being trod on by Amadou Onana. Belgium’s players adjourn to the sideline for drinks and a very animated team talk in which De Bruyne and Onana do most of the coaching.
38 min: De Bruyne tries to put Trossard clean through on the Ukraine goal with a through ball but Oleksandr Svatok makes the vital interception.
36 min: Doku sends a cross sailing high and wide under pressure from Oleksandr Tymchyk, who is doing a pretty impressive man-marking job on the Belgium winger. In Frankfurt, Romania have equalised against Slovakia.
32 min: Belgium win a free-kick wide on the right and during the break in play, Kevin De Bruyne has a long chat with team coach Domenico Tedesco. Standing over the free-kick, he draws the referee’s attention to somebody in the crowd acting the maggot with a laser pen, then almost catches out Anatoliy Trubin with a shot on goal when the Ukraine goalkeeper was expecting him to cross the ball.
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31 min: It remains goalless after 30 minutes and as things stand, Belgium will have an appointemnt with France next Tuesday. That could be some game, if it happens.
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30 min: Mykolenko sprints after a ball down the left and whips a cross into the Belgium penalty area. It’s a little behind Yaremchuk, who gets his head to the ball but can’t steer his effort on goal.
28 min: Ukraine pass through the Belgian midfield with ease and the ball finds its way to the feet of Dovbyk, who dithers over it instead of rolling it in the direc tion of Yaremchuk, who was in space and screaming for it. A half-chance goes to waste.
27 min: I should specify that I don’t mean England levels of ponderousness. No, nothing that bad.
25 min: Belgium are dominating proceedings but could probably do with speeding up their approach play when on the ball. They look a little ponderous arounbd the fringes of the Ukraine penalty area. Elsewhere, Slovakia have gone ahead against Romania and lead this group as things stand.
23 min: Belgium make their way upfield and Timothy Castagne beats his man down the right. He sends a good cross towards Lukaku but Zabarnyi beats the Belgian striker in the air.
21 min: Now Artem Dovbyk gets in on the action but pulls his low shot wide of the right post from more than 30 yards out. It was ambitious, I’ll give him that.
21 min: Ukraine carve Belgium open down the middle and Yaremchuk stings the palms of Koen Casteels with a rising drive. It’s a decent effort.
19 min: De Bruyne tries to lift a passs over a defender into the path of Youri Tielemans, who was unmarked on the right side of the Ukraine penalty area. A man in a bright yel;low shirt gets his head in the way to make a crucial interception. De Bruyne is really on it, today. He’s such a terrific player.
17 min: Castagne coughs up cheap possession in midfield to Shaparenko and Ukraine enjoy a short period of posasession. It comes to an abrupt end when Yaremchuk is penalised for shoving Wout Faes to the ground as the two players chased the ball to the byline. Free-kick for Belgium, deep inside their own half.
16 min: Ukraine’s fans are understandably outnumbered in Stuttgart but those who have been able to get to the game are making one heck of a din. Good for them.
14 min: Belgium win a couple of corners in quick succession but nothing comes of either. There’s a lot of pulling and dragging from both sets of players as De Bruyne’s second delivery arrows deep and several of them end up lying on the floor.
13 min: Amadou Onana sends a weighted pass down the inside right but De Bruyne is unable to keep the ball in play to provide the all-important pull-back into the penalty area.
12 min: Doku gives Tymchyk the slip but is unable to pick out a teammate with his ball inside from the left. Ukraine, who are under the cosh, clear it upfield.
10 min: Doku isn’t being given an inch by Ukraine and ends up on the deck after a challenge from Illia Zabarnyi. He appeals for a free-kick but Anthony Taylor waves away his protest.
9 min: Tymcchyck robs Jeremy Doku of possession and promptly has his own pocket picked by De Bruyne. Belgium are looking pretty good thus far and their captain is purring.
7 min: Arthur Theate plays the ball forward to Kevin De Bruyne, who slips a pass in behind for Lukaku, sprinting to the edge of the Ukraine six-yard box. He gets to the ball before Trubin but scuffs his shot, making the save easy for the goalkeeper. That was a decent chance and it’s no surprise De Bruyne was the provider.
6 min: Youri Tielemans tries to play Lukaku in behind the Ukraine defence but overhits his weighted pass. The ball rolls to the feet of Anatoliy Trubin in the Ukraine goal.
4 min: Mykolenko wins possession out on the left with a robust challenge and charges inside before laying the ball off to Shaparenko. Belgium clear.
3 min: Both goalkeepers have had early touches and Belgium’s man in green pauses play briefly to have a word about something with referee Anthony Taylor. I have no idea what that was about but play has resumed.
2 min: Ukraine win an early corner and take it short. Nothing comes of it and Belgium clear their lines. Doku has lined up on the left wing for the Belgians, with Trossard on the right.
Ukraine v Belgium is go ...
1 min: Belgium get the ball rolling, their players wearing their strip that’s an homage to Tintin. The shirts are pale blue, the shorts are brown and the socks are white. Ukraine are in all yellow.
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Not long now: The teams are out in Stuttgart, with Ukraine knowing a win will definitely see them through to the knockout stages and Belgium aware that a win or draw will suffice for them. Kick-off is just a few minutes away and both sets of players should probably go about their buisiness working on the assumption that the other match in this group will be a draw. Which is not to suggest etc, and so on …
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Ukraine: Serhiy Rebrov’s side are expected to line up with five at the back, using wing-backs. Mykhailo Mudryk misses today’s game with injury.
England news: Phil Foden has travelled home to England to be present for the birth of his third child. All going well, he is expected to return to the team camp before England’s next game against as yet unknown opponents on Sunday afternoon.
Romelu Lukaku: Belgium’s striker has had three goals disallowed so far in this tournament, a state of affairs that prompted his teammate Jeremy Doku to say the big man is frightened of celebrating if he hits the back of the net.
“He would have liked to have the goals because, now when he scores, I think he’s scared to celebrate,” said Doku yesterday. “He didn’t have a lot of luck, but he’s happy. He’s happy because we won our last game. Of course, as a striker, he always wants to score and of course you think of your individual stats, it’s normal. But he’s happy with the impact that he’s having on our team and the chances he’s creating.
“If you watch the games you can see how important he is for us. He didn’t score, but he gave an assist and that’s important as well.”
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Those teams: Mykhailo Mudryk is a conspicuous absentee from the Ukkraine matchday squad for reasons that are not yet clear. Everton left-back Vitaliy Mykolenko starts after recovering from his ankle ionjury and Oleksandr Zinchenko drops to the bench. Midfielders Georgiy Sudakov and Roman Yaremchuk come into the Ulraine side, with Andriy Yarmolenko also dropping out.
Belgium make just one change, with Leandro Trossard coming in to rep[lace the suspended Dodi Lukebakio.
Ukraine v Belgium line-ups
Ukraine: Trubin, Tymchyk, Zabarnyi, Svatok, Matviyenko, Mykolenko, Shaparenko, Brazhko, Sudakov, Yaremchuk, Dovbyk.
Subs: Bushchan, Konoplya, Taloverov, Sydorchuk, Stepanenko, Yarmolenko, Malinovsky, Zinchenko, Zubkov, Bondar, Lunin, Vanat, Mykhaylichenko.
Belgium: Casteels, Castagne, Faes, Vertonghen, Theate, Tielemans, Onana, Doku, De Bruyne, Trossard, Lukaku.
Subs: Debast, Carrasco, Kaminski, Sels, Vranckx, De Ketelaere, Mangala, Bakayoko, Openda, Vermeeren, De Cuyper.
Ukraine: Veteran midfielder Taras Stepanenko knows his team carry a responsibility beyond the pitch as they face Belgium, writes Jonathan Wilson.
“It may be his achievements with Ukraine at this Euros have a significance that reverberate far beyond anything he has achieved at club level in 14 years at Shkhtar Donetsk,” says our man in Dusseldorf.
Today’s match officials
Referee: Anthony Taylor
Referee’s assistants: Gary Beswick and Adam Nunn
Fourth official: Glen Nyberg
Video assistant referee: Stuart Attwell
Early team news
Ukraine have a fairly clean bill of health, with Everton left-back Vitaliy Mykolenko likely to start after recovering from injury so Oleksandr Zinchenko can play in midfield. Girona winger Viktor Tsyganov is reported to be carrying a knock, which means Andriy Yarmolenko could start again. Anatoliy Trubin is likely to keep his place in goal after his excellent performance against Slovakia.
Belgium must do without Axel Witsel and Thomas Meunier, who are both sidelined with muscle injuries, while winger Dodi Lukebakio is suspended after picking up two yellow cards. One of Johan Bakeyoko or Leandro Tossard is expected to deputise.
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Preamble
With all four sides on three points after their first two fixtures, this group could scarcely be more finely poised but Ukraine currently sit bottom by dint of their inferior goal difference. They came from behind to beat Slovakia last time out, while Belgium were 2-0 winners over Romania. Serhiy Rebrov’s can guarantee qualification for the knockout stages with a win over Belgium today and can win Group E if they win and get Romania don’t beat Slovakia.
A draw will ensure Ukraine finish in third place and that might be enough to see them through to the last 16 if either Romania or Slovakia win their game, but – whisper it – a draw between those sides seems likely as it would suit both nations. Indeed, Ukraine could still go through even if they lose because … well, just trust us on that one.
As for Belgium. If they win and Slovakia don’t they will top the group, but if they lose and Romania get a point they will exit the tournament in ignominy. Everything is very much to play for in Stuttgart and kick-off is at 5pm (BST).
