For the special reasons we all know, in the world of football, whether it is the World Cup or the European Championship, whether it is a qualifier or a play-off, Russia and Ukraine cannot be in the same group. In the Champions League, clubs of the two countries cannot meet in the same group.
In the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers in Qatar, both Russia and Ukraine reached the European zone play-offs. According to the rules, the 12 teams are divided into 6 seeded teams and 6 unseeded teams. The six better-scoring teams are seeded teams: Portugal, Italy, Russia, Scotland, Sweden and Wales, who will enjoy home advantage in the semi-finals of the play-offs. The non-seeded teams are Ukraine, Austria, Poland, Turkey, North Macedonia and the Czech Republic. Russia and Ukraine are not in the same group and are divided into Groups A and B respectively, and the semi-finals of the play-offs will be held on March 24.
The Russian national team and the Ukrainian national team have only met twice in history. In the 2000 Euro 2000 qualifiers, Russia and Ukraine were in the same group 4, and Ukraine had a one-point advantage to push Russia to second place to enter the play-offs. Ukraine also won and drew in direct clashes between the two teams (3-2 at home and 1-1 away), with "Ukrainian nuclear warhead" Shevchenko scoring in both legs.
In the final round of the group stage, before the second leg of the match between the two sides, the group points situation was fiercely competitive, with Ukraine with 19 points and France and Russia with 18 points both competing for tickets to the European Championship. The match between Russia and Ukraine, which starts at the same time as the match between France and Iceland, is a desperate situation for Russia to win. Only a win for Russia can secure a second place in the group and even have a chance to overtake France.
Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium gathered 84,000 spectators, including Putin, and people from all walks of life came to the scene, which was the ukrainian team's first appearance in Moscow since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Arenichev and Karl lead russia equally, while Ukraine has the famous Shevchenko, and it was this super-scorer from AC Milan who scored a goal in the 87th minute, completely losing hope for Russia, the only time Russia has missed the European Championship since 1996.
Unfortunately, in the play-offs, Sheva was unable to lead Ukraine through Slovenia and missed the Euro 2000 championship.
So, what is the football feud between Russia and Ukraine? Starting with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, FIFA and UEFA decided that Russia would become the successor to the Soviet team, continuing the points coefficient and football history, while other newly independent countries had to start from scratch. Ukraine considered this to be unfair, and in the Euro 198 final, at least 7 players in the Starting Lineup of the Soviet Union were Ukrainians.
However, FIFA allows each player to choose which national team he wants to represent, and many Ukrainians prefer Russia because they have a better chance of competing in the World Series. Ukrainians, including Viktor Onopko, Andrei Kanchelskis, Igor Nikiforov, Ilya Tsymbalar and Sergei Yuran, have all chosen to play for Russia.
As a result, the young Ukrainian team has almost no experienced players to rely on, and struggled in the 90s and failed to qualify for the World Cup and the European Championship.
It was not until the emergence of the younger generation led by Andrei Shevchenko that Ukrainian football saw hope. In the 2006 World Cup, they finally broke into the main competition and rushed to the quarter-finals to usher in a historic moment. In 2012, the 36-year-old Shevchenko led Ukraine to the stage of the European Championship, after which Sheva withdrew from the national team and scored 48 goals in 111 appearances in his 16-year national team career.
At Euro 2016, Shevchenko accompanied Ukraine as an assistant coach, and after the European Championships, Sheva turned into the head coach of the Ukrainian national team. At Euro 2020, Sheva led the team to the quarterfinals, which was the second time in the history of the Ukrainian team that it reached the quarterfinals.
Compared with the Ukrainian team, Russia's nearly 30 years of football has only been absent four times, including euro 2000, which was directly kicked out by Ukraine, and the best result was the 2008 Euro Cup all the way to the final four.
In the last three European Championships, both teams have scored the main stage, and under the premise of avoiding the group stage, there is no possibility of meeting in the knockout stage. Because only Ukraine reached a knockout round last year, and the two European Championships in 2012 and 2016, both teams were out of the group stage and went home.