Glorious past, quality present, play-off misfortune

Numerous Ukrainian footballers have contributed to former Soviet Union's success, both on European and world stage, in club and international competitions, especially in winning EURO 1988 silver and Olympics gold the same year. Oleg Blokhin has marked the entire decade of Ukrainian football, while names like Valeriy Lobanovskyi, Oleksandr Zavarov, Oleksiy Mykhaylychenko, Oleh Protasov, Igor Belanov or World Cup record-holder Oleg Salenko remain important chapters in football history books.

Dynamo Kiev partnership in attack, Andriy Shevchenko and Serhiy Rebrov, was feared among more modern opponents, including European club giants, while current manager Shevchenko has become a symbol of Ukrainian football during his Milan and Chelsea spells.

Upon gaining its independence, Ukraine has secured just one World Cup berth, in 2006 in Germany. Defeating Tunisia and Saudi Arabia in group stage, and Switzerland on penalties in Round of 16, Ukraine reached the quarterfinals and lost to future finalists Italy (0:3).

Ukraine did came close to other major tournaments, however. In four other attempts to reach a World Cup, Ukraine lost in the play-off round. In 1997, it was to Croatia, at the beginning of Croatia's bronze-winning story in France, followed by Germany in 2001, Greece in 2009, and France in 2013. This incredible streak was completed by a play-off loss in EURO 2000 qualifying to Slovenia.

As one of the hosts (alongside Poland), Ukraine was automatically qualified for the EURO 2012, but exited the tournament at the group stage after the England, France, and Sweden encounters. Four years later in France, Ukraine failed to progress to the second round trailing to Germany, Poland, and Northern Ireland.

Anatoliy Tymoshchuk is the most capped player in Ukraine history, wearing the yellow-and-blue jersey on 144 occasions, which ranks him among top 30 most capped players in the history of football. Ukraine top goalscorer is, of course, Andriy Shevchenko with 48 goals in 111 appearances, with current star Andriy Yarmolenko on 29 goals at 27 years of age.

Following the assistant manager position under manager Fomenko at EURO 2016, Shevchenko took over the national team, and his coaching staff includes former Milan defender Mauro Tassotti.

Ukraine comes to visit Zagreb as No. 31 in FIFA Rankings, on the wings of the creative wingers, Yarmolenko and Konoplyanka, with the experienced names such as Pyatov, Rotan, Kucher, Rakitskyi or young prodigy Zinchenko. Shevchenko's men have started the qualifying campaign with a home draw against Iceland (1:1) and an away draw at Turkey (2:2), upgraded by two home victories against Kosovo (3:0) and Finland (1:0). At Maksimir, Ukraine therefore plans to stay in the race for the top spot of the Group I.

Copyright by Croatian Football Federation. Quoting text from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to HNS as a source and providing direct link to the original content at hns.family. Re-use of the photographs is not permitted.