Mentor of the “blue-yellows” summed up the results of the historic match for our football team at the Olympic Games.
The head coach of the Ukrainian Olympic team Ruslan Rotan commented on the defeatfrom the Iraqi team at the start of the 2024 Olympic football tournament.
In the first ever match at the Olympic Games, which took place on July 24 at the Parc Olympique Lyonne stadium in Lyon, France, our football team lost to Iraq with a score of 1:2.
“Everyone saw everything. What kind of pattern can we talk about when the opponent hits 2-3 times and we lose? I think that there are more global mistakes here, children’s ones, that turned this game upside down. We must accept this result. We have two games against even stronger teams The next match is the most important. We must now recover against Morocco, I think we must come in better physical and mental shape. errors.
Penalties are problems. We must not give up. We emphasized that the problem is not the mistakes, but how we act after that. This fact disappointed me, because we did not believe (in ourselves – approx.). I think that we were a head or even two stronger than our opponents, but our mistakes became fatal for us. We began to worry, rush, and get nervous. It is not necessary. There was time to correct them. I didn’t like it,” Rotan said in an exclusive flash commentary for Suspilne Sport from Paris.
In another match of the first round of Group B, Argentina lost with a scandal to Morocco (1:2). Thus, Iraq and Morocco scored 3 points each, Ukraine and Argentina are still without points.
In the second round, the Ukrainian team will play with the Moroccan team on July 27 in Saint-Etienne. On the same day, Argentina will meet with the Moroccan team. Iraq.
Rotan's team will complete the group round on July 30 with a match in Lyon with Argentina. Morocco and Iraq will compete in a parallel game.
According to the regulations, players who were born will take part in the Olympic football tournament. after January 1, 2001, each team was allowed to enter only three performers over this age.