DNIPRO ARENA:: Perhaps it was best this was not shown on television: some of this wasn’t fit for watching before the watershed.
With flares thrown from the crowd, threats of abandoning the game, sporadic racist chanting directed at England’s black players, terrible defensive mistakes, a red card and Fabio Capello’s first defeat in a competitive game this was not a game for the faint-hearted England fan.
For Ukraine, though, it was a famous night, taking them to the cusp of qualification. For Luka Modric, Eduardo and the rest of the Croatian team, these were grim tidings indeed.
True to his word, Capello sent out a strong line up, the major change being the inclusion of Michael Carrick, for the first time in this qualifying campaign, at the expense of Gareth Barry.
The Manchester United midfielder has been returning to his best form after his peripheral involvement at Old Trafford in the early part of the season. With Barry on the bench it was clearly a tactical switch, Capello keen to see how Carrick’s superb range of passing might integrate into his side.
That might have been hard on Barry but Capello is not shy of making tough decisions – after a transatlantic flight, followed by a trans-European one, David Beckham did not even make the bench. Hope he enjoyed the shuttle runs.
As expected, Robert Green retained his place in goal – but it took him barely 15 minutes to lose it. Having done little wrong in his five games between the posts since David James’ shoulder injury it would have been unfair of Capello to drop him. He might have wished he had been when Rio Ferdinand landed him in an impossible position from which he was sent off. He will be suspended for the game against Belarus on Wednesday and winning the shirt back from James will be extraordinarily hard now.
Green had to be on his toes just a minute into the game as some 15 flares came hailing down around him from the hard-core Ukrainian fans in the stand behind him.
The stewards watched on impotently and when the police did arrive, they busied themselves with tidying up. With the smoke clearing, England created their first chance.
Aaron Lennon skipped away from Anatoliy Tymoschuk and the Bayern Munich midfielder brought him down. Glen Johnson took the free kick quickly, tapping to Frank Lampard whose measured ball behind Andrei Shevchenko found Lennon sprinting to the byline. Yaroslav Rakytskyy did well to head out Lennon’s driven cross from under his own bar.
With England looking comfortable the game suddenly descended into chaos. Rio Ferdinand misjudged the flight of the ball under the floodlights, let it bounce and in doing so let in Artem Milevskiy. The Ukraine striker sprinted past Green who brought him down and the Slovenian referee Damir Skomina immediately signalled a penalty.
Fair enough, but fallibility was clearly contagious: the referee showed Ferdinand the red card, much to the United defender’s bafflement. He was certainly guilty in spirit but not by law.
The fourth official, seeing the mistake, told the linesman who in turn informed the referee. The unfortunate Green trudged off and Lennon, who had started brightly, was replaced by James.
Shevchenko stepped up to take the penalty. The Ukraine captain and former Chelsea striker seemed to be groping after old glories, having run straight at the England team from the kick-off. Now he had his chance.
To the horror of most of the stadium his effort hit the base of the right-hand post and went wide. On poured the flares again – this time the riot police came filing out into the stand to act as a deterrent.
Predictably, Ukraine came on to England but it was their own mistakes, rather than the hosts’ numerical advantage that was responsible for the first goal. Ashley Cole lost control of the ball trying to do a drag back on the edge of his own box.
Milevskiy nipped in and ran across the face of the area before being tackled by Johnson. The loose ball fell to Sergi Nazarenko whose powerful shot hit Cole, trying to cover for his own error, and deflected past James.
England, with Rooney having dropped to the right wing, should have been level moments later when Lampard dragged a shot across goal and just wide of the far post after Rooney had anticipated his run with a clever reverse pass.
Ukraine counter-trusted, the impressive Milevskiy rattled the woodwork with a thumped effort from 25 yards.
At half-time the announcement went out over the address system that if any more flares came on the pitch the referee would stop the game and Ukraine could face a points deduction.
Meanwhile Capello was dealing with his own problems. Steven Gerrard seemed to have picked up a groin injury and was replaced by James Milner. Bad news on the banks of Dnepr and the Mersey.
England regained composure in the second half, as Capello instructed Carrick to screen the back four. In fact, the visitors slowly played their way back into the game as home nerves began to jangle. James was forced into one save from Rakystkyy’s long ranger but otherwise it was mostly England.
When Lampard was felled right on the edge of the area, an opening appeared. Rooney rolled the free kick short and Lampard hit the ball with ferocious power, only for it to cannon off a Ukrainian body to safety. Shevchenko pumped his first at the crowd as if that was the final whistle.
With 10 minutes left, and the finals in sight, Ukraine had the chance to settle it. They burst forward on the counter-attack, Rakystkyy playing substitute Andrei Yarmolenko in down the left and, while he took it a little wide, James did well to block with his feet before Ashley Cole closed down Ruslan Rotan on the edge of the box as he took sight of the empty goal.
Rooney had them panicking with a late drive that flashed wide but the one goal was just about enough though, triggering celebration around the Dnipro Arena.
