Euro cup 2012 Results – Ukraine 0 – 2 France

Well after an extraordinary hour in the history of big tournament football, I can finally start to write my match report. The game began with some rain falling on the pitch but after 3 minutes the rain was torrential and fork lightning threatened the safety of players and fans at the Euro 2012 venue in Donetsk.

The game was postponed a total of 55 minutes and was restarted at 18:00 GMT by a drop ball from the referee. The first few minutes after the game resumed were very slow as the players started to get a feel for the match one more, after all the players didn’t have a warm up after being in the changing rooms for the best part of an hour.

After 20 minutes france are being more decisive with their possession creating more chances, 18 minutes in they had a goal disallowed due to a correct offside decision. Ukraine begin to have more posession and Yarmelenko has a shot on goal which goes just wide. France also with a chance and a shot just over the bar from Menez, Benzema just minutes after producing a tame shot on target, The game seems to be warming up now, extraordinary scenes before in this Euro cup 2012 tie.

Fine save by Pyatov to deny Menez after a burst of pace from Ribery capitalised of a defensive error from Ukraine. Ukraine on the attack now but France knick it back and counter, should have had a corner there france. 10 minutes left in the first half here in this delayed game.

Some good attacked followed from both teams, Ukraine legend Shevchenko with an excellent solo effort which include a thunderous volley which was straight at France’s Hugo lloris. Then at the other end france attack and have a corner which Mexes uses to his full advantage heading toward the top right hand corner of the goal which is well saved by Pyatov. Thats all for the first half

The second half kicks off and the game already ace more pace about it than the entire first half. Ukraine have a few good attacking chances as do France before Jeremy menez puts France into the lead excellently around the 56th minute.

2 minutes later and France score again, this time its Yohan Cabaye who double the French lead. Karim Benzema threaded a ball through the Ukrainian defence and Cabaye takes it early to put it past Pyatov. Difficult to see Ukraine coming back into the match now but their is still time.

France still exerting authority on this match with the french looking in control of the game. France almost score again moments later with Cabaye thundering a strike against the post from the edge of the area, Ukraine break just after as ukraine look to get back into the match. Ukraine now have 3 strikers on the pitch and yarmelanko squanders a good chance hitting his own player with his shot.

Not much happening in the game now, France still on top with only the odd attack from the Ukraine now. As I say that the Ukraine seem to be enjoying a good spell of possession of the ball. Oliver Giroud takes the place of Karim Benzema at 75 minutes in, both teams have now made all three of their available substitutions.

The final part of the game peters out slightly with Ukraine pushing more and more forward but never really looking as is they are going to score a goal. Only 5 minutes left of normal time, france havent needed to be excellent to win tonight but it was a hard fought performance at times by the Ukraine national team.

The referee was Bjorn Kuipers of Holland and he had a decent match, certainly made the right decision to bring the players off during that storm. A few pictures are shown below.