Ukraine lost to France 0:4. However, this did not prevent them from advancing. Victory in the match against Iceland allowed them to advance to the playoffs, where they are expected to face Sweden.
They failed to score against France In the first half, the blue and yellows held their ground and ended it in a draw. However, in the second half, our team was unlucky: in the 55th minute, they conceded a penalty to Kylian Mbappé. The French then managed to score three goals: our players conceded one goal each from Michael Olise, Hugo Eguitike and Mbappé himself.
In total, the French had 25 shots on our goal (10 of them on target). It is worth noting that goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin saved the goal six times, conceding only four goals, including the same penalty in the 55th minute.
Unfortunately, our team managed to make only one shot in the match against the French.
There were no shots on target. The shot in the 49th minute was taken by Yegor Nazaryna, who received the ball from Roman Yaremchuk. This happened in the penalty area after a corner kick. The shot was blocked, so it did not pose a threat to the opponent’s goal.
After contact with Dayot Upamecano, Nazarina fell, but this was not recorded by the referee as a foul, although he reviewed the episode in the VAR system, interrupting the game. No foul was found — Upamecano was first to the ball, and Nazarina hit his leg.
National team’s anti-record
As mentioned above, the ‘blue and yellows’ made only one shot on France’s goal, without making a single shot on target. Thus, the team repeated its own anti-record: this has happened three times since 2022. Prior to this, the national team failed to make a single shot on target when they faced England in the European Championship qualifiers (0-2) in the spring of 2023 and in a match against Scotland (0-3) in the Nations League group stage in the autumn of 2022. In both matches, three shots were made, but none of them hit the target.
Prior to that, in two previous matches against France, our team managed to make eight shots, three of which hit the target. This happened in September at the start of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers (remember that the match ended in a 0:2 defeat for our team) and in 2022 in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers (the match ended in a draw).
However, even in October 2020, when the ‘blue and yellows’ lost to the same French team with a score of 1:7, they managed to make five shots on target, hitting the goal nine times.
On 16 November, Ukraine will play against Iceland. This will be the sixth and decisive round of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers. The game will take place at 7 p.m. Kyiv time.
