Teams of Georgia, Ukraine and Poland won the play-off tournament and made it to the final part of the European Championship 2024 in Germany. Sports talks about the struggle for the last three tickets to the main tournament of the year.
The miracle with the Bosnians was not in vain. Sergei Rebrov's team might not have been in the playoff finals at all. Ukrainian football players played extremely poorly against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the semi-finals and by the 85th minute they deservedly lost with a score of 0:1. But three minutes passed, and during this time the hosts fell apart before our eyes… The first goal was scored by Roman Yaremchuk, and in the 88th minute Artem Dovbik brought the “zhovto-blakitny” forward, disgracing the Bosnians in front of the native audience.
Everything went much easier for Iceland: the Vikings defeated the Israeli team in Budapest with a score of 4:1. The hero of the meeting was Albert Gudmundsson, who scored a hat-trick.
As in Zenica, in Wroclaw the Ukrainians who had the initiative were the first to miss. In the 30th minute, the same Gudmundsson turned on the opponents near the penalty area and shot without a chance for goalkeeper Andrei Lunin. The nominal hosts quickly responded with a goal scored by Yaremchuk, who closed out Viktor Tsygankov's discount… However, everything was ruined by referee Clément Turpin, who recorded an offside.
After the break, the Zhovto-Blakitnye quickly returned to the game. In the 54th minute, Tsygankov broke through the right flank into the center and placed the ball exactly in the far corner — 1:1. And while the Ukrainians, with their replacement Alexander Zinchenko, were increasing the pace, the Icelanders seemed to be playing not the main match of recent years, but playing a passing “freight train”. The Vikings decided to attack and pressed against their own goal — there were more and more dangerous moments, and it seemed that Ukraine’s second goal was inevitable… But Ukraine almost missed! Haraldsson missed from an excellent position, and Gudmundsson forgave after a defensive error.
Yet Iceland did not survive until extra time. According to the semi-final notes, Ukraine made a comeback at the end of the match and snatched a ticket to Germany. On the character that the guests so lacked. In the 84th minute, everyone forgot about Mikhail Mudrik in the penalty area — it was easier for the Chelsea forward to hit than to miss.
Having missed out on the Old World Championship in 2008, the Ukrainians will play at the fourth Euro in a row.
Endless boredom in CardiffV In a parallel match, Wales, having left Finland out of action (4:1), hosted the Poles, who had dealt with the Estonians (5:1). The teams scored nine goals between them, it would have been a real carnage… But it turned out to be a 120-minute dull spectacle, only vaguely reminiscent of football.
In the penalty shootout, luck was on the side of the visitors: Juventus goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny saved the final penalty kick.
Georgians avenged the Kazakhs Earlier in Tbilisi, the Georgian team made history. Returning to the squad, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and company made millions of compatriots happy by making it to the European Championship for the first time in history thanks to a difficult triumph in the confrontation with Greece.
The Hellenes left no room for Kazakhstan in the first match (5:0) , but they couldn’t upset another country from the post-Soviet space. The Georgians, having successfully passed Luxembourg (2:0), did not score against the Greeks at home, but did not concede either. Everything was decided by a penalty shootout, in which two mistakes by the guests led to a sensation. The winners of Euro 2004 lost to the Georgians for the first time in eight meetings and are flying past Germany.
Another proof of the terrible crisis in Greek football is the fact that since 2014 its national team has not qualified for the World and European Championships.
Which quartets did the winners of the play-offs fall into?
- Group D : GEORGIA, Netherlands, Austria, France;
- Group E: Belgium, Slovakia, Romania, UKRAINE;
< li class="article__list-item">Group F: Turkey, POLAND, Portugal, Czech Republic.
About the tournament What do the other groups look like, when will the main football event of the year take place and what German arenas will host the European championship — we talked about everything in our text dedicated to the December draw for the final stage of the Euro.