Serhiy Rebrov spoke to the press today after his team faced a surprise 3-0 defeat to Romania in their EURO2024 opener.
Rebrov’s premonitions in his pre-match press conference about the pace of Romania’s attack were proved correct as the Tricolorii recorded their first European Championships victory in 24 years.
What did Serhiy Rebrov say?
Embed from Getty ImagesReacting to their unexpected defeat, to opponents more than twenty places below them in the FIFA rankings, Rebrov said: “It doesn’t matter who is ‘favourites’ or not – football is about today, what you’re showing today.
“Today unfortunately we didn’t show our level and now we have to be more serious for the next match.”
Ukraine had the vast majority of possession but only two shots on target. Rebrov said: “Clearly there were different components of the game – we were in possession but we didn’t create any chances.
“We were controlling the game today but we never created anything serious in the first half.”
Turning to the opponents who shocked them today, he said: “(Iordănescu) did everything right.
“Romania are a good team. I said it before in yesterday’s pre-match press conference, this is a football nation. They can play football and they showed that today.”
Ukraine will need to bounce back from the defeat before they face Slovakia on Friday.
“Unfortunately nobody expected this result and also unfortunately we have a very serious game in front of us.
“We have to concentrate here and if we are not showing our maximum, it will be very difficult because we are playing against the best players in their countries.
“Everybody is unhappy – but again we have a game in three days and now we have to analyse. This evening we will definitely analyse the game and tomorrow we will talk with the players.”
Read how Romanian manager Edward Iordănescu and captain Nicolae Stanciu reacted, and follow the rest of the action from EURO2024, here on FromTheSpot.