Tottenham Hotspur and Wales left-back Ben Davies has hailed the professionalism of Manchester City ace Oleksandr Zinchenko ahead of Sunday's huge World Cup play-off clash between Wales and Ukraine in Cardiff.
Ukraine set up the winner-takes-all clash with Rob Page's side after producing a heroic performance to beat Scotland 3-1 at Hampden Park in their play-off semi-final on Wednesday night. It means Zinchenko's nation are now just one win away from sealing a place in the finals in Qatar.
Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine back in February, the country has experienced an overwhelming feeling of love and support from across the world, and reaching the World Cup would mean so much to so many. The win over Scotland was packed with emotion and the scenes at full-time brought tears to the eyes of some.
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City ace Zinchenko was at the very heart of the win over the Scots, producing an exceptional performance in the centre of midfield, which featured an assist for Artem Dovbyk's goal to net the third goal in stoppage time. He was put up in front of the cameras for an interview after the full-time whistle and he displayed all of the hallmarks of a great captain, leading by example and guiding his team through a highly emotional evening.
And Davies — who will have ambitions of helping Wales reach their first World Cup since 1958 — said Zinchenko was the star of the show for the way he conducted himself, describing him as a "stand-out man."
The Welshman said "The way that Zinchenko has handled it all in the media is a real credit to him, and he has shown what a stand-out man he is."
As well as hailing Zinchenko for his individual performance against Scotland, Davies also waxed lyrical about Ukraine as a whole, outlining how recent events in the country have galvanised them as a squad.
Davies continued: "We think we are very lucky in the sense that we don't have to see how tough it is every single day or how difficult it must be for them to have their lives uprooted. You have to just credit their players for the way they have handled it so far.
"Football can kind of seem a bit insignificant in these times and moments, and it is very difficult to try and rationalise that a game is so important when you've got such major events going on in the world. As you can see what it meant to them the other day, they are as desperate to win this game as we are."
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