We should mention that judging the team just hot on the traces is a thankless task. Especially when you are at the heart of the tournament, that is called “European Championship”. The hosting cities are full with foreigners, there are lots of multicolored national flags all around, and everyone, young and old, speaks about football everywhere: in shops, on metro stations and subways. The atmosphere of eternal holiday is everywhere; the emotions are in full swing. The only thing you can do is just trying to stay calm and impartial and make a fair appraisal. «The Show Must Go On», on and on even when the hosts left the distance.

Maybe that is the reason why many of the respected experts are inconsistent in their comments and conclusions. Lots of them were in a hurry to make lots of compliments to the team and the main coach, but still there are those, who have rather critical point of view concerning the game and the result. For example, Viktor Leonenko, who is famous for his straightforwardness, was quite laconic about the prospects of the team even before the game: “Is there anything non-clear with this team? We think that game with France had shown everything crystal clear”.

It seems that russian commentator Vasiliy Utkin had also felt all possible emotions. Firstly he said: “Personally I stake 10% on the Ukrainian victory. There’s little chance for the Ukrainians to win while playing against the English team”. The next day, just after the Ukrainian loss, he wrote in his blog lots of pleasant words and compliments, addressed to the main coach of our team Oleg Blohin. Such weird things happen sometimes.

It will be no surprise if the rest of the experts would correct their points of view with the time. There are poetic lines, belonging to S. Esenin, that are actually the best description for our situation, and the meaning of them is that things that deserve attention can be seen only from the distance, not in “face-to-face” situation. These lines are suitable when speaking about the goal of Devich, which wasn’t scored, and when the judge Viktor Kashai became the one to blame for absence of luck of the Ukrainian team. “Oh, another blind! Homer, Milton and now – Kashai (in the original – Panikovskiy)”. These are the words from the famous novel of Ilf and Petrov, and they are the mildest that occur in mind after the results of game with England. Everyone in press and on TV was ready to kill the judge. But it was worth for spectators to “wind off” the video track and watch attentively not only the selfless jump of Terri, but the pass from Selin to Milevskiy several seconds before. We think, then it will be realized then that there are still questions to beasked concerning this game. That judges can make mistakes not only to help our foes, and that the world isn’t so unfriendly to Ukraine.

We are not the ones who are satisfied with the game; with the game itself and with the result. But there were a lot of great emotions and we want to thank for it. We want also to thank the team for not losing heart till the very end. But after all we have the feeling of uncertainty (was it worth to prepare during the last 2 years and then play only 3 matches?), disappointment and incomprehension. For example, Oleg Vladimirovich promised that we’ll see a completely different team on the championship. And after not having passed the first group he said, that he wanted to congratulate the team because of their marvelous performance and he didn’t feel sorry for the results.

We also don’t feel sorry for our national team; yes, there were dedication and emotions, but we don’t agree with the coach’s statement about great performance and “different” team. Our grade is “3” out of “5”.P.S. By the way, do you remember the motto of Ukrainian national team? “Ukrainians, our time is now!” If it so, then it passed quite unnoticeably, because right after the match with the Englishmen Oleg Blohin started talking about prospects and future, about the future World Championship and possible team choice. But the only thing that we wanted was the present, here and now.