Match № 38

The match № 38, play offs, ninth tournament day, match for the 3rd place

FINLAND – UKRAINE 0:2 (0:0)

January 13th, 2013, Saint-Petersburg, Peterburgsky SCC, 3500 spectators

Referees: Artem Chistyakov, Bgor Sukharenok, Peter Miroshnichenko

Finland: Eriksson, Tenho, Holmgren (Starck, 77), Saarinen, Kvist, Skrabb(c), Pyysalo, Sjoroo(Puro, 46), Hradecky(Ojala, 68), Jokinen(Rahimi, 68), Hambo (Voutilainen, 46)

Head coach: Kimmo Lipponen

Ukraine: Sarnavskii (c) (Chizhikov, 90), Kacharaba, Tkachuk, Shevchuk, Tankovskii (Jastrub, 70), Lukanov (Polegenko, 71), Radchenko(Zaviiskii, 88), Miranjan(Jaremchuk, 83), Chumak, Sizii, Sobol

Head coach: Alexander Petrakov

After match comments

Head coach of the team Finland Kimmo Lipponen:

– That was a good week for us, we have played 5 good matches. Ukraine is a strong opponent; we knew their players were fast. That's why in the first half we've didn't open our defense. But after the break, when the Ukraine players were already tired, we've built our tactical scheme on attacking moments. We got some scoring chances but couldn't realize them. I've done two double substitutions, the first one helped us to strengthen the team but the second made us weaker. However, we needed these substitutions. If the payer is tired there comes a risk for him to get injury and as the coach, I'm responsible for their clubs. Obviously the sportsmen had the lack of speed and, perhaps, the luck also.

Head coach of the team Ukraine Alexander Petrakov:

– This was an equal game but we could realize our scoring moments but the Finnish team didn't. That's also possible that we had a bit stronger wish to win. I want to thanks the team of Finland for a good and interesting game. Their team is very strong and we really played equally. My work, as the coach, is to motivate the sportsmen for the game. And I managed to do this today. We've changed our tactical scheme, we've played with two central midfielders and it gave its result. We were also good from wings but we faced the lack of individual skills of players on the final stage of attack. And that's what the Finnish team was good at. All in all, we won because we had better team play, game scheme and the strong wish.