Ukraine defeated North Macedonia 2-1, despite a sympathetic performance they are out of the tournament

The duel between Ukraine and North Macedonia was a clash of two teams that lost their first match and needed to score points to keep their chances of advancing. Andriy Shevchenko’s team won three points, while the Macedonians finished the tournament.

Andriy Shevchenko made two changes after the loss to the Netherlands. Sydorchuk dropped out of the starting lineup, and an injury kept Zobnin out of the game. Stepanenko and Shaparenko were in the yellow jersey from the opening minutes. North Macedonia made only one change, Trajkovski was replaced by Stefan Spirovski.

That a possible loss could almost knock both teams out of the tournament was quite evident at the start of the match. Both teams were struggling to score goals and there were several turnovers.

In the beginning of the match, only the action of Roman Yaremchuk stood out, who rushed into the penalty area from the right side, but instead of shooting he chose to pass, which was blocked by the opponent’s defense for a corner.

Ukraine was more active and had a few promising chances, but none of them led to a scoring opportunity and Dimitrievski had little to do.

But then it was captain Andriy Yarmolenko’s turn. First, he burned a chance after a beautiful pass from Malinsky, but after the ensuing corner he got to the ball at the back post and sent it into the Macedonian net.

The goal calmed down the Ukrainians and then they started to show their strength. In particular, the trio of Zinchenko, Yarmolenko, Yaremchuk started to show off their great chemistry. After this axis, the second goal came.

In the 35th minute, Zinchenko sent the ball to Yarmolenko on the wing, who sent Yaremchuk into the chance from the first and he made no mistake in the face of the goalkeeper. 2::0.

In the 39th minute, the Macedonians also made their presence felt. 37-year-old icon Goran Pandev got to the ball in the whitewash and beautifully flicked the ball over Bushchan, but his joy was thwarted by a raised flag. It was 2:0 to Ukraine.

After the change of sides, Ukraine wanted to keep the result and the Macedonians sensed it. Churlinov and Trajkovski jumped into the game.

In the 55th minute, it was the latter who set up the ball for a shot, which the Ukrainian goalkeeper only cleared off the crossbar. However, Goran Pandev raced to the rebounded ball, was hit by Oleksandr Karavaev while trying to kick it away and the referee whistled for a penalty.

Ezgjan Alioski stepped up to take the penalty, but the Leeds defender only hit the goalkeeper, but managed to slot the rebound into the net to reduce the score to 1: 2.

In the 74th minute Viktor Tsygankov could have increased the score for Ukraine again, but his shot just missed the left post. Malinovsky had another chance to increase the score in the 84th minute.

After a centre from a direct kick, VAR found Rapallini’s hand and a penalty was whistled. The Atalanta midfielder stepped up to take it, but Dimitrievski caught his attempt.

Northern Macedonia still tried to wrest a draw from the final onslaught and although they deserve a lot of respect for their great performance, they couldn’t score another goal and so they are out.

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