Match №34

The match № 34, FINAL, tenth tournament day

RUSSIA – UKRAINE 4:2 (2:1)

January 27th, 2013, Saint-Petersburg, Peterburgsky SCC, 7000 spectators

Referees: Mikhail Belov, Andrey Vereteshkin, Alexandr Bogdanov

Russia: Lobancev, Nikitin (c), Zuev, Mitrishev (Vasilyev, 90), Panyukov, Lambarskiy, Obukhov (Makhmudov, 65), Kayumov (Ambartsumyan, 80), Bocharov, Golubev, Semenov

Senior coach: Nikolay Pisarev

Ukraine: Shevchenko, Nasonov (Myakushko, 62, Poliarus, 83), Iashvili, Pryndeta, Ozarkiv (Akubardiia, 46; Galchuk, 90), Noiok (c), Babenko, Tashchy (Meskhiia, 54; Filippov, 74), Kalitvintsev, Karavaev, Iakovenko (Ivanko, 58)

Head coach: Sergii Kovalets

Goals: Iashvili (5, own goal), Kalitvintsev (14), Panyukov (37, 76), Ivanko (64), Makhmudov (90, pen.)

Yellow cards: Pryndeta (29), Kayumov (35), Panyukov (48), Karavaev (74), Zuev (78)

Red cards: Shevchenko (90)

Best players: Andrey Panyukov, Vladyslav Kalitvintsev

After match comments:

Senior coach of the team Russia Nikolay Pisarev:

– The game was worthy of being the final. In the very beginning I said that the favorites of the tournament were team Ukraine and we. I'm glad that it's really so. And I want to thank my players. The final turned out for us the best match in the tournament, relative the playing level. And the hardest one was the first, against team Uzbekistan. We had a strategy for this tournament. We'd had only 3 days to prepare for the tournament, so we were to improve playing from game to game. And during the group stage we managed to make a team which becomes the winner. Now several players of this team may pretend to going to the European Championship 2013 in Israel. Both Valentin Granatkin Memorial and the Commonwealth Cup were good for us because team Russia always has strong opponents in January and we have a possibility to watch a good deal of players from 1991 to 1995 year of birth.

Head coach of the team Ukraine Sergii Kovalets:

– My congratulations to the team of Russia. The tournament itself was very interesting and the final was brilliant. The spectators who were watching the game at the stadium or at home on TV surely got a lot of pleasure. What's about our game, we played the way we could. But we even had to make reverse substitutions because the players got injured. Meskhiia obviously got a serious trauma whether Miakushko was just slightly injured. But we decided not to take any risk especially we had nobody to substitute him. The foul and sending off of Shevchenko can be explained only by his youth and by that he was nervous. Though, missing the balls and losing the game is not responsibility of the goalkeeper only but of the whole team. Moreover, Shevchenko made some saves and that's a pity that he couldn't save all the shots. I think, that he hadn't got any other options in the moment in the end of the game but to foul.