In seven previous attempts to qualify for the World Cup, the Ukraine national team succeeded only once — under Oleh Blokhin's leadership. He, shortly after taking charge of the national team, made a bold statement about qualifying for the final tournament from first place in the group. And despite skeptics, he fulfilled his promise, and in Germany, at the highest level, led the team to the quarter-finals, where they were defeated only by future champions Italy.

Blokhin made that statement in response to a question reminding of Ukraine's failures in World Cup qualifiers. This was the case in 1997 when we didn't go to France for the World Cup due to Croatia, it happened again in 1999 (Serbia kept us out of Euro), and once more in 2001 (Germany did not heed our slogan "Our goal is 2002").

Overall, in six out of seven World Cup qualification cycles, Ukraine has never dropped below the second step. We qualified for the 2006 World Cup from first place; in five cases, we lost at the playoff stage (besides the mentioned episodes, we conceded to Greece in 2009, France in 2013, and Wales in 2022).

Ukraine National Team World Cup Qualifiers

WC-2022    Shevchenko, Petракov     10   3   6   1   14–10   15   eliminated in playoffs