Ukraine’s emotional players have sent a defiant message to their troops and compatriots back home fighting against Russia – we are supporting you with our football.
Ukraine’s 2-1 win over Slovakia in Dusseldorf last Friday was a historic moment, their first victory in the finals of a major tournament since Russia invaded two years ago.
Valencia striker Roman Yaremchuk, who scored the winning goal, was in tears at the final whistle as the players celebrated with those fans who made it to Germany. And goalkeeper Anatoly Trubin said the team’s way of showing solidarity to the soldiers and people back home was to carry on winning.
“I think we don’t need to say a lot of words, we need to show it on the pitch so our win here was the best way to say to our people and our soldiers we are fighting for you.
“It’s difficult not to think about the war, but we need to focus on the games and if you have a team like this, the way we played today, this is a huge message for our soldiers and our people in our country.
“The best message we can send as players is in the way we play our game.
Trubin replaced Real Madrid’s Andriy Lunin after Ukraine’s 3-0 defeat by Romania in their opening match and added: “After the first game we understood that we didn’t give everything that we could have done, but today it was much better. There is still a lot of potential for improvement.”
After Yaremchuk broke down in tears, the Benfica keeper said: “I’m very happy for him that he scored a very important the goal for us.
“We all have our own character so it’s not the same for everyone. We need to stay calm and keep our emotion for the next game.”
Trubin previously played for Shakhar Donetsk, and took part in their friendly with Olympiakos back in April 2022, the first game played by a Ukranian side after the Russian invasion. He said: “At that time it was scary for everyone because we didn’t know what would happen.
“But it showed that football in Ukraine is still alive and now we need to push on as a national team, with our games and our achievements, to do our best.”
Ukraine’s final group game is against Belgium in Stuttgart on Wednesday and they can still qualify for the knockout stages. Arsenal full-back Oleksandr Zinchenko said: “Belgium are one of the best teams in the world with a lot of world-class players but if we want to go through to the next stage we need to show our best performance.”
