Fomenko praises Ukraine discipline
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Article summary
Ukraine coach Mykhailo Fomenko hailed his below-strength side's discipline in gaining a 3-0 win in Luxembourg, Luc Holz bemoaning missed chances from their forwards.
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Article body
• Andriy Yarmolenko's hat-trick gives Ukraine a 3-0 win in Luxembourg
• Mykhailo Fomenko praises the Ukrainians' discipline
• Luxembourg coach Luc Holz bemoans missed chances
• Next games: Slovakia v Luxembourg, Spain v Ukraine (27 November)
Mykhailo Fomenko, Ukraine coach
At the beginning of the match Luxembourg were on top a bit and had three good chances to score. We reacted with discipline and thanks to that we got the first goal. In the end the result says that we were disciplined.
Our way of playing tonight shows that we were much better than against Slovakia [a 1-0 home defeat in September]. It was not easy to prepare for this game because we had many injured players and this has been the case since the beginning of our EURO campaign.
The best thing is always to win the game and to score goals so we are satisfied. If you look at the results of the EURO qualifiers so far, there are a lot of surprises and we are very happy that we have achieved our objective tonight.
Luc Holtz, Luxembourg coach
We cannot be happy with the result, especially if you see the good chances that we had with [David] Turpel – we had to score during that first half. I am very disappointed because we trained all week specifically with the strikers but unfortunately they did not score tonight. At 2-0 and 3-0 down we were spent.
If we had had [forward Aurélien] Joachim since the beginning of our European campaign we would have taken more than just a point. Also, our players are not used to such high-tempo games – in Luxembourg the pace is slower.
After four games the picture is very positive. Ukraine and Spain are the best teams in our group, there is nothing illogical if we lose to them. Against Belarus and FYR Macedonia we played well but missed some chances – we did not score when we could and I think that's also because we had some players injured. In March we will play Slovakia, and maybe we will have a full squad and will score when we get the chance to do so.
In the past it sometimes happened that Luxembourg did not get any points in qualifying and now we have one point. When I see the other coaches in Europe, they speak about our improvements. One day our work will pay off and that day will come soon.
