Ukraine Travel To Slovenia With A 2-0 Lead

Posted on November 17, 2015 by Sreya

Ukraine will face Slovenia in the second leg of their UEFA Euro 2016 qualification play-off on Tuesday with a healthy 2-0 lead from the first leg played at L’viv Arena last week. Ukraine dominated Slovenia for the entire ninety minutes, especially on the flanks, as Srečko Katanec’s side failed to contain Yevhen Konoplyanka and Andriy Yarmolenko.

Aggressive pressing from its fullbacks Vyacheslav Shevchuk and Artem Fedetskiy allowed Ukraine to push back Slovenia into their own half and a similar gameplan is likely to be adopted in the second leg as well. Slovenia had absolutely no answers to Ukraine’s tactics, as the likes of Milivoje Novakovič and Josip Iličić failed to register even a single shot on target.

Slovenia were too deep for most parts of the game and mostly unimaginative when they had the ball. Slovenia’s direct football in face of strong defensive performance from Ukraine meant the visitors could not create enough chances on the difficult night.

They now face an uphill task of scoring twice while containing Ukraine and depriving them of an away goal at the same time. Their problems are bound to be confounded as Olexandr Kucher and Taras Stepanenko return to the Ukraine setup after serving one-game bans in the first leg, having collected three bookings during the qualifying group stage.

According to Head-2-Head statistics, Slovenia had never lost to Ukraine before the first leg. However, current form suggest the Ukraine side are more likely to progress to the 2016 UEFA European Championship. The match is likely to end in a draw, with 1-1 being the most probable scoreline.