Scotland buckle under barrage from relentless Ukraine

IF SCOTLAND were to lose their unbeaten record in Group B of the Euro 2008 qualifying, it was entirely fitting that it should be to opponents who gave them a merciless beating.

By the time the Ukraine captain, Andriy Shevchenko, converted the penalty kick that confirmed their victory, the Scots had lost Steven Pressley to an ordering-off for a deliberate foul on the Chelsea striker as Oleg Blokhin's side exacted retribution for their own defeat to Italy four days earlier.

Oleksandr Kucher had given Ukraine the lead in the 60th minute of a match in which the deepest mystery was how they managed to take so long to do so. When Pressley deliberately stopped Shevchenko's charge towards the visitors' goal, it was merely confirmation of the gap between the two teams.

Similarities with the match against France last Saturday were as predictable as they were obvious. But, although Ukraine were a physical match for the World Cup finalists in terms of athleticism, power and pace, they generally lacked their flair.

This did not make them any less oppressive, especially during a first half in which Shevchenko and his team-mates seemed to have made a vow not to spend more than a couple of minutes in total inside their own half of the field.

For the home side, however, there was the common problem caused by the presence in their midst of one of the world's most celebrated players. Shevchenko is even more of a god in Ukraine than Thierry Henry is in France and there is a tendency among his colleagues to pick the wrong option in their keenness to use him as a conduit for their attacking surges.

It was the great striker, though, who brought the first scare to the Scots when, having been supplied by Anatoliy Tymoschuk, he turned nimbly inside Graham Alexander and Darren Fletcher on the right and cut the ball back to Oleg Gusiev. The Dynamo Kiev forward's low drive from 15 yards was diverted wide by the crowding Scottish defenders.

As had occurred four days earlier, the dark blue shirts encountered frustrating difficulty in escaping from the neighbourhood of their own goal, although they should have been better prepared to exploit a defensive lapse by Ukraine that offered a rare opportunity.

As Paul Hartley picked up the loose ball on the right, Fletcher bolted down the inside-right channel. The pass was perfect and, with Kenny Miller free on the left side of the home penalty area, the yellow jerseys were suddenly looking at the previously unlikely prospect of conceding a goal. Fletcher's attempt at finding Miller with the cross, however, was a serious disappointment, the Manchester United midfielder wrapping his right foot around it and pulling it tamely straight to Tymoschuk.

If there was virtually constant movement in the direction of Craig Gordon, however, there was equally unrelenting concentration among the Scots defenders, rarely allowing their opponents what could be described as authentic openings. When, for example, Shevchenko managed to slide a low centre from the left past Gary Caldwell, David Weir came in from behind his team-mate to concede the corner kick.

The most unnerving moment before the interval arrived when Pressley committed himself to a challenge that left him stranded, and Andriy Voronin haring towards the right side of the Scots penalty area, utterly free of a challenge. The Bayer Leverkusen striker hesitated, however, as he searched for team-mates in support and he was being quickly closed down when he hit the low shot towards the nearside post, which Gordon comfortably turned diverted.

On the only other occasion which allowed the Scots the potential to do some damage, Alexander played a free kick on the left short to Barry Ferguson.

The captain, with no rival in the vicinity, had a poor attempt at troubling goalkeeper Aleksandr Shovkovskiy, pulling the shot several yards wide of the goalkeeper's right-hand post.

Ferguson's attempt, however, was made to look like the work of a natural predator by the misses perpetrated by Shevchenko himself in the opening minutes of the second half.

Following a slip from McFadden on the Ukraine right that allowed Tymoschuk possession, the Shakhtar Donetsk midfielder played the cross low the big Chelsea striker. His first effort was blocked by Pressley, but, in following up, he had merely to prod the ball past Gordon from five yards. He managed this, but rolled the ball against the post.

When very soon after, Tymoschuk again crossed from the right, Shevchenko, who had come in behind the defence, had a free header which he sent several feet wide of Gordon's left post.

Unlike the French, the Ukrainians showed little sign of becoming dispirited or discouraged by their failure to convert their unchallenged superiority into an advantage. If anything, their aggressiveness became even more intense, the Scots possibly learning how it feels to be caught in a stampeding herd of bulls.

There was an inevitability about a goal so pronounced that the only question concerned the identity of the scorer. It turned out to be Kucher, but it could have been any of a number of rampaging home players. Ironically, he was aided by an attempted clearance by McFadden which struck Vyacheslav Sviderskiy and broke to Kucher, who turned and drove the ball low past Gordon from only eight yards' range.

Not even the most rabid Scot among the 3,000 or so who travelled to the Ukrainian capital could have argued with the home team's right to the lead. They had been in control of the match from the earliest moments, perhaps thinking at times that they were cursed. And yet, when Robbie Neilson delivered a perfect cross for Miller near the end, the Celtic striker, perhaps through lack of practice, glanced the unchallenged header wide when he was unmarked on the edge of the six-yard box.

For the Scots, possibly feeling the effects of their enervating struggle with the French, it was a night in which the words of their manager - "every match will be hard for us" - could not have been more prophetic.

Taken from the Scotsman