The DFO Euro 2020 (in 2021!) Preview: Ukraine

We’re on the verge of the greatest international sports summer ever! We have:

• Copa América
• Euro 2020
• Concacaf Gold Cup
• Tokyo Olympic Games

And it all starts on June 11, 2021 with the European Soccer (Football) championships aka Euro 2020!

Yes, it is 2021 but they decided to keep the name, ok?

From now until the tourney starts, we’ll be giving you previews for every country in Euro 2020, DFO-style, of course. We will also provide previews of all the Copa América countries as the Copa América starts on June 13, 2021 right after Euro 2020 starts.

Euro 2020 will be broadcast in English on ESPN in the United States and on TSN in Canada. Univisión has the Spanish language rights in the US and TVA has the French language rights in Canada. Here is a handy calendar for you to use to schedule your vacation days right here:

Today’s country is:

The hut of Baba Yaga! Wait, shit, that’s not it.

(It’s Ukraine.)

Country: Ukraine
Capital: Kyiv (Kiev)
Team Nickname: Головна команда (The Main Team) or Жовто-Сині (The Yellow and Blue)

Ukraine is an odd case. The junior teams do well. The under-20 team won the U-20 World Cup, which is a thing. The U-21 team finished second in the 2006 U-21 Euros. The main team, however, has brief flashes of being good. And by that I mean the 2006 World Cup (so yeah, 2006 was a good year for Ukranian footy) where they made the quarters. It’s their only World Cup appearance.

In the whatever-the-fuckery that is the UEFA Nations League, they have made it as high as League A via promotion from winning League B in 2018-19. It was this previous cycle, and they promptly got relegated back in the 20-21 cycle. In fairness, if you’re with Spain, Germany, and Switzerland. Part of that was also because eight players on the team got covid and they forfeit 3-0 to the Swiss, and head-to-head is the tiebreaker, and then head-to-head goal differential. In fairness, yeah, that’s rough. If they had been able to play the game and gotten a draw they would have stayed in the division. Well, that’s life in the time of cholera, I mean covid.

Next question: Do you know any of these people? Only if you follow Ukrainian soccer, because most of the team plays for either Dynamo Kyiv or Shakhtar Donetsk, the two major teams in the country—one of them has won the Ukranian Premier League every year since 1993, or every year except for the first season of the league. Dynamo Kyiv leads in Ukrainian titles, 16-13. Current Ukrainian leading goal scorer Andriy Yarmolenko plays for West Ham, and a couple other players play for assorted teams across Europe.

Ukraine will be in Group C with the Netherlands, Austria, and North Macedonia. This seems like a decent draw for Ukraine, where they may be contesting with Austria for 2nd considering what the FIFA rankings say (NED 16, AUS 23, UKR 24, MKD 62). So I’ll say they finish second, I’ll be bold here, but not so bold to knock off the Dutch group hosts. Then probably lose to Italy in the round of 16.

In conclusion, Ukraine won’t fare better than when they were spared by a world-altering event in the famed Kramer-Newman War, but they’ll do okay.