Once again, Shevchenko helped Ukraine win the European Cup.
The greatest goalscorer in the history of the Ukrainian team, Andrei Shevchenko, once again proved his importance to Ukrainian football!
On the evening of the 17th Beijing time, Ukraine relied on the goals of Yarmolenko and Yaremchuk, and finally defeated North Macedonia 2-1, winning the first victory of the European Championship and ushering in Ukraine's second victory in the history of the European Championship. No matter how thrilling or even frustrating the process is, winning is always something that deserves the joy of Ukraine and their manager Shevchenko, and what makes Shevchenko even happier is perhaps that he saw two Ukrainian players finally tie a record of his own.
In the first match of this European Championship, Ukraine eventually lost 2-3 to the Netherlands, while North Macedonia was also defeated by Austria 3-1, giving Austria its first European Championship victory in its history. Therefore, when the two losers meet in the narrow road in the second round, winning is undoubtedly a common goal of both teams.
In Ukraine's short and unspeakable history of european championships, the last time they won a European Championship was in 2012, when they first appeared at the European Championship, and in the first game of that European Championship, they finally beat Sweden 2-1 and made an absolutely wonderful start, but since that victory, the Ukrainians have never won any European Championship matches.
At this point, it may be necessary to emphasize that the hero who helped Ukraine win the first European Championship was undoubtedly their current manager Shevchenko, who finally reversed the victory with his second score against Sweden. What must not be forgotten is that before the start of this European Championship, the two goals of the "nuclear warhead" turned out to be the only two goals scored by Ukrainian players in the European Championship.
Yarmolenko helped Ukraine open the record.
Of course, in the 2-3 defeat to the Netherlands in this European Championship, Yarmolenko and Yaremchuk finally stopped letting their manager "alone" become the only players on their team to score in the European Cup, and in this match against North Macedonia, although Ukraine wasted many consecutive scoring opportunities, Yarmolenko and Yaremchuk scored again, helping Ukraine to take a 2-0 lead in the first half.
While Ukraine took the lead, Yarmolenko and Yaremchuk also scored two goals in the European Cup, and they also joined forces to equal manager Shevchenko and become the Ukrainian players who scored the most goals in the European Cup.
Such a first half did make Ukraine and Shevchenko feel excited, but after entering the second half, North Macedonia, which was not willing to lose, still created enough trouble for the Ukrainian backline, and the game went on to the 55th minute, and North Macedonia was won by Ali oski's penalty, making the suspense of the game rise again.
North Macedonia narrowed its points gap at one point.
In the previous welsh and Turkey matches, Bale's missed penalty made this European Championship seem to fall into the spell of "penalty missing", and Alioski's penalty also made North Macedonia once heartbroken. His penalty was saved by Ukrainian goalkeeper Bushcha, and fortunately, he immediately scored a good shot, which made the mood of North Macedonian fans experience a rollercoaster thrill.
However, the spell of "missing the penalty" is still valid, and Ukraine, which was once chased by North Macedonia, also won a penalty in the 82nd minute, but since the two biggest goals of the game have been replaced, the penalty was awarded by Malinovsky, who had previously made a good shot blocked by the North Macedonian goalkeeper.
A scene that broke Shevchenko and Ukraine was staged, and Malinovsky's penalty, like his previous shot, was again saved directly by North Macedonian goalkeeper Dimitrovsky, playing for Malinovsky of Atlanta in Serie A, and did not even get a chance to make up for it - just a few minutes later, Malinovsky's first shot was fired.
Ukraine still has a long-awaited victory.
Of course, these are just some of the "tidbits" of this game, and with North Macedonia missing another chance to score in the last minute, the 2-1 score was maintained until the end, and the Ukrainian finally won the first victory of this European Championship and the second victory of the team in the European Championship.
With his European Cup scoring record tied and his team winning a long-lost European Cup victory, Andrei Shevchenko really has too many reasons to be excited about himself and his team. However, just from the course of this game, Ukraine only scored two goals in 8 shots on target, which is enough to prove that Ukraine still lacks a stable and efficient shooter like Shevchenko, and whether the "Ukrainian nuclear warhead" can solve this problem may be the fundamental guarantee of how far Ukraine can go.