The Ukrainian national football team qualified for the first time to the World Cup. Coach Oleg Blokhin — who under the banner of the former Soviet Union, played and starred at two FIFA World Cup finals, Spain 1982 and Mexico 1986 — was the architect of this achievement.
In an interview with FIFAworldcup.com, Blokhin said that they achieved their objective by qualifying, but “now we’ve obviously raised our expectations and we definitely want to progress beyond the group stage.” And as a coach that is not enough for him, he added, “We have to continue pushing forward.”
The real preparation has yet to begin. The Ukrainian will be playing a few friendly matches to go to the tournament in top form.
Though Andriy Shevchenko is known as Ukraine’s striker, Blokhin said that after the World Cup, “everybody will know the names of players like Alexandr Shovkovski, Anatoliy Tymoshyuk, Andrey Rusol, Ruslan Rotan, Andrey Voronin and many of the younger members of the side”.
Ukraine’s hopes were given a boost when first-choice goalkeeper Aleksander Shovkovsky resumed playing last weekend after almost three months out injured. “I will do everything to be in ideal form for the World Cup,” Shovkovsky told reporters.
