Today I'm going back 17 years to 2006 and the World Cup Group H meeting between Saudi Arabia and Ukraine in the Volksparkstadion in Hamburg, Germany. The official attendance was the stadium's capacity of 50,000 and indeed all the official attendance figures at the tournament were rounded off to exact thousands rather than being the precise number of attendees as is more usually the case. I imagine that FIFA decided to do that in order to create the impression that the stadiums were full despite the fact that there will always be a number of no shows, particularly in respect of those people who have received their ticket for free via a corporate invitation and don't fancy it on the day. Irrespective, the stadium was pretty busy on the night.
The programme featured is actually the English language version of the programme covering the whole tournament. There were no official programmes issued for individual matches at the tournament other than for the Final itself although there was also an updated version of the featured edition issued following completion of the Group Stage to cover the knock-out phase of the competition. Before you ask, yes I purchased the German language version of this programme too and it was indeed wunderbar! The featured programme cost 10 Euros on the day but you could buy the same edition today on ebay for as little as £5 proving that programme collecting is never going to make you rich!
The game was the second Group Stage game for each side. Saudi Arabia had opened with a creditable 2-2 draw with Tunisia and, indeed, had only had victory snatched from their grasp by a late goal in stoppage time. Ukraine's first match in what was their first ever World Cup Finals was a less than satisfactory 4-0 drubbing by the mighty Spain which meant that defeat to the Saudi's in their second game would have eliminated them from the competition at the earliest possible moment.
My usual practice when attending international football tournaments is to apply for tickets "blind" meaning that I had no idea who I would be watching until after the Group Stage draw was made. Of course, that approach makes the draw very exciting and I have been rewarded down the years with some absolute classic match-ups but, on this occasion I got Ukraine versus Saudi Arabia, not a fixture to set the pulses racing (unless you are a Ukrainian or Saudi national I suppose). Indeed I was destined to watch the Saudi's twice in this particular World Cup as I also had a ticket for their final Group Stage game against Spain (a match I have previously covered in my blog if you want to read up on that). There wasn't a single Saudi player that I had seen previously since most of the squad played for clubs in the Saudi professional league and, as for Ukraine, I was only really familiar with Sergei Rebrov (formerly of Spurs and West Ham amongst others) and Ukraine's only real superstar, captain Andriy Schevchenko who had recently joined Chelsea from AC Milan for a British record transfer fee of almost £31 Million. Schevchenko went on to win 111 caps for Ukraine scoring 48 goals and would eventually manage his national side between 2016-21. Schevchenko has also tried his hand at politics and, despite being one of those Ukranians whose first language is Russian, he has called for an end to the war in Ukraine and denounced the Russian invasion.
With barely three minutes played Ukraine had the lead from a corner that was bundled in by defender Andriy Rusol to the delight of manager Oleg Blokhin. Ukraine's second goal came after 36 minutes and was rifled home from almost 30 yards by Sergei Rebrov. He didn't score many like that for Tottenham I can tell you! Ukraine had an early goal in each half of the game and their decisive third goal was headed in by Schevchenko from a Kalynychenko free kick in the first minute of the second half. The match was surely over but there was one further goal to come, scored by man-of-the-match Kalynychenko six minutes before the end following unselfish play by goal scorer turned provider Schevchenko. Ukraine's World Cup was up and running.
Ukraine would go on to win their final Group game 1-0 against Tunisia to qualify for the knockout phase in second place behind Group H winners Spain. Ukraine would face Switzerland in the Round of 16 and beat them on penalties to set up a Quarter-Final tie against Italy in Hamburg. The Italians were too strong for Ukraine however running out 3-0 winners and indeed Italy would go on to win that 2006 World Cup beating France in the Final on penalties. Saudi Arabia ended up finishing bottom of Group H with one point but that was probably one point more than most people had expected them to get.
CRB Match No. 1504
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