Near-empty because of the COVID-19 quarantine measures, the Stade de France stadium, located several kilometers north of Paris, became a silent witness of the worst defeat in the history of the Ukrainian national soccer team.
In a friendly match on Oct. 7 with France, the current world champions, Ukraine lost 7:1.
While the game marks an unpleasant moment for the national team, it will not affect its participation in any of the tournaments.
Ukraine has never missed more than four goals in a single match before.
The team’s coach and former soccer player Andriy Shevchenko blames the poor performance on the unfortunate circumstances: 14 national team players couldn’t participate in the match because of injuries and their positive COVID-19 tests.
“France is a world champion, and, unfortunately, we could not bring our best team to try to compete with it,” Shevchenko said at the press briefing following the match.
The first half of the game ended with 4:0 on the scoreboard.
France’s forward Olivier Giroud scored a brace, which brought his international tally to 42 and made him the second top scorer in the country’s history. The record belongs to legendary retired player Thierry Henry who scored 51 goals.
Another goal was scored by 17-year-old midfielder Eduardo Camavinga, who is also the youngest player the French team has had over the last century.
The fourth one was an own goal by Ukrainian defender Vitaliy Mykolenko, who made a mistake while trying to protect the net from a corner kick.
During the second half, the other three goals were scored by French players Kylian Mbappe, Corentin Tolisso, and Antoine Griezmann.
Ukraine’s Viktor Tsygankov netted the only goal for Ukraine at the beginning of the second half.
Among those diagnosed with the novel coronavirus on the Ukrainian team are goalkeeper and captain Andriy Pyatov and midfielder Taras Stepanenko, who play for Ukraine’s Shakhtar club.
Because Pyatov, the team’s main goalkeeper, wasn’t available, 26-year-old Heorhiy Bushchan was at the gate. Shevchenko even had to submit to the squad retired 45-year-old Oleksandr Shovkovsky, a legendary goalkeeper who finished his career in 2016 and has worked as an assistant coach of the national team since 2018.
“We have a lot of problematic positions now and we don’t understand who we can call up for our next matches,” Shevchenko said.
The Ukrainian team has two upcoming games scheduled for the near future. As part of the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Nations League competition, Ukraine will face some of the world’s strongest teams — Germany (Oct. 10) and Spain (Oct. 13).
