EURO 2020 HT: Ukraine 2-0 North Macedonia. Ukraine well on their way to victory, with a goal apiece for forwards Yarmolenko and Yaremchuk. North Macedonia have had their moments but look a little outmatched; it will be some effort to come back and get a result from here. Shaparenko could have had a shot instead of diving.
He’d completely done the defender into space in the box. I really don’t understand. When I play football all I want to do is score goals, not win a penalty like that. Pathetic.
Rapallini, loaned in from South America, makes an impact in Europe with a quality bit of refereeing. Mykola Shaparenko goes down dramatically in the area but the defender, Darko Velkovski, clearly stepped back and avoided contact, and Shaparenko is booked for diving.
Ukraine surge forward again, with Karavaev going down under Alioski’s challenge in the area. Play is waved on, and Karavaev gets up to hit a snap shot, which Velkovski almost deflects past his own keeper.
Ah, that’s a shame. Pandev runs onto a through ball and finishes beautifully, lifting the ball nonchalantly past Georgiy Bushchan. Sadly, he was a yard offside from the pass.
This was a clever bit of training-ground trickery, Malinovskyi’s low near-post cross flicked on smartly by Karavaev. It rolls all the way across goal to Yarmolenko, who forces it in at the far post – with his right foot!
Malinovskyi is obstructed by Stefan Spirovski and goes down clutching his throat. It didn’t look malicious from Spirovski, but was definitely a foul. Nothing given by Rapallini, who has presumably seen worse in South America.
