Oleksandr Zubkov: "To win against the Armenians was very important! Moreover, we had to win convincingly"
Yesterday, on September 24 in Yerevan, the Ukraine national team defeated the Armenia team (5:0) in a match of the 2022/2023 Nations League.
Photo by the press service of the UAF
Midfielder of Donetsk's "Shakhtar" Oleksandr Zubkov scored a goal and made two assists. The midfielder of the blue-and-yellow team commented on the match.
"This was my debut goal in an official game for Ukraine's national team. I also remember scoring against Northern Ireland in a friendly match. Today, we demonstrated good football. In the first half, we were somewhat cautious with each other. Armenia played with five defenders in their last match, but this time they came out with four defensive players. So we had to figure out how to play against them for quite some time. It was good that we managed to score first, and after halftime it became easier.
If you take all the goals we scored today, in several cases they were preceded by very good combinations. Especially good combination play was seen before the fourth goal. In my opinion, the decisive moments against Armenia were the second goal and effective substitutions that strengthened our game. Winning against Armenia today was very important. Moreover, it was necessary to win convincingly to recover from the previous match with Scotland. So now we will prepare in a positive mood for another meeting with this team. This will be the most important game in this tournament."
"I feel good, played almost 70 minutes. Now my physical condition is at the right level,"— said Oleksandr Zubkov.
Recall that the match of the sixth round of the group stage of the Nations League between Ukraine and Scotland will take place on September 24 in Krakow (kickoff at 9:45 PM Kyiv time).
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League of Nations. The Ukraine national team defeated Armenia's team in Yerevan Note: There seems to be a historical or contextual error as the phrase "Ліга націй" typically refers to the League of Nations, an organization that existed from 1920 to 1946 and is not commonly used in contemporary sports reporting. If this was meant to refer to a different entity such as UEFA Nations League, please clarify or correct the source text accordingly. However, based on the instruction, I've provided a direct translation.
League of Nations-2022/2023. Armenia — Ukraine — 0:5 (text commentary)