The manager of the national team of Ukraine on cyber football: "We won the main match - against Montenegro, but we were let down by Italy"

04.04.2020 14:00

Photo by Volodymyr Rasner

The manager of the national team of cyber football Konstantin Demyanenko summed up the performance of his wards in the 2020 European Championship qualifying tournament. 

Cyberfootball team of Ukraine in PES discipline could not complete the task reaching the final of the eEURO-2020 in London. Our boys finished third in their group H and dropped out of the tournament draw. 

The manager of the team Konstantin Demyanenko shared his impressions of the performance of the national team of Ukraine in the qualifying round of the European Championship 2020: “In my opinion, we did not have enough experience. And, as banal as it may sound, good luck. We played the second round exactly as expected. The boys won the main match - against the Montenegrins (7: 4), but Italy let us down a bit. This team lost to Montenegro, which is much weaker than it. If with us the Italians realized all their chances and played as concentrated as possible, then with the Montenegrins everything looked different. They squandered a whole bunch of moments and lost as a result. They made us, so to speak, a surprise. As a result, it was not us who left the group, but Montenegrins.

Despite this, I want to say that we played the second round better than the first. This is evidenced by both the game and the results. Even with the Italians we had great chances, because in the course of the meeting we won them. However, there was a little lack of experience, and at the decisive moment we could not take advantage of our moments - 2: 4. Unfortunately, when we saw the result of Montenegro with Italy, it became clear that we are unlikely to leave the group. We beat other rivals, but not everything depended on us. 

I have no complaints about the guys. They fulfilled the task set before the second round. Yes, they lost to the Italians, but that was the expected result. Italy is a very experienced team that has been performing at the highest level for many years. We understood that it is possible to take points in them only at the expense of luck. We defeated everyone else, including Montenegro. In other words, in ten matches of the two qualifying rounds we have only two defeats from Italy and a draw with Montenegro. What can be the claims? 

The future of our national team will now depend on the tournaments that will be held under the auspices of UEFA or other international organizations. I really hope that we will get a chance to prove ourselves. "