World Cup-2022 - the seventh cycle: the national team of Ukraine in the qualifying tournaments of the world championships

24.03.2021 13:01

Photo fifa.com

The national team of Ukraine once again in the qualifying round falls into the same group with the current world or European champion.

Two years ago, Andriy Shevchenko's team started a new selection - for Euro 2020 - with a match against the champions of the continent from Portugal. And the first meeting of the selection of the World Cup-2022 on March 24, the national team of Ukraine will hold with the winner of the 2018 World Cup - France.

Previously, the blue-and-yellows played in the same group with the second team of the 1994 World Cup (Italy), the reigning European champion in 1996 (Germany), the 1998 world champion (France), the 2004 European champion (Greece), the 2006 world champion and vice-champion. year at the same time (Italy and France), European champion in 2012 (Spain). Portugal in the last cycle and France in this - it's just a continuation of history. Difficult, but interesting.

In its six previous attempts to get to the World Cup, the national team of Ukraine has succeeded only once - under the leadership of Oleg Blokhin. As soon as he led the national team, he made a loud statement about reaching the final tournament from the first place in the group. And, despite the skeptics, he kept his promise, and already in Germany, at the World Cup, brought the team to the quarterfinals, where it laid down its arms only in front of future winners from Italy.

Blokhin made that statement in response to a question that reminded of the failures of the Ukrainians in the playoffs. This was the case in 1997, when we did not go to France for the World Cup via Croatia, this is what happened in 1999 (Slovenia did not let us in the Euro), this is what happened in 2001 (Germany did not pay attention to the slogan "Our goal - 2002") .

In general, in the qualifications for the World Cup, Ukraine did not fall below the second step in the first five consecutive cycles. At the 2006 World Cup, we got from first place, in four cases we lost in the playoffs (2009 - Greece, 2013 - France). 

Ukraine's national team in World Cup qualifiers

The record for the number of goals in the qualifiers and finals of the World Cup in the national team of Ukraine belongs to Andriy Shevchenko (28). He and Anatoliy Tymoschuk hold the record for the number of matches played (45 each).