Today, at 21:45 Kyiv time, the Ukrainian national team will play its final Nations League match of the year against Albania in Tirana at the Air Albania Stadium. UNN decided to tell you where to watch the match, the starting lineups, and who is the bookmakers' favorite.
Ukraine has never played in this arena, but back in 2005, at the Kemal Stafa Stadium, where Air Albania was built, the Ukrainian national team played its only match on Albanian soil, defeating the hosts in the qualifiers for the historic 2006 World Cup 2-0.
The match can be watched live on the Megogo platform, and the Ukrainian national team will be broadcast live on T2 digital broadcasting by regional Suspilne TV channels. It is already known that Ukraine will play the match in a yellow kit. The Albanians will play in red.
For the match against the Albanians, the head coach of the national team made 4 substitutions: Anatoliy Trubin in goal, Ilya Zabarny and Mykola Matvienko in the center of defense, Vitaliy Mykolenko and Yukhym Konoplya on the flanks of defense. Ivan Kalyuzhnyi will play in the support area instead of Volodymyr Brazhko, Heorhiy Sudakov and Oleksandr Zinchenko, who replaces Mykola Shaparenko, will start in the center of midfield. Mykhailo Mudryk and Oleksiy Hutsulyak, who replaces Oleksandr Zubkov, will start on the attacking flanks. Roman Yaremchuk will play at the center of the attack instead of Artem Dovbyk.
Forward Vladyslav Vanat, who missed the previous match against Georgia due to injury, was not included in the squad.
The day before, the national team coach Serhiy Rebrov said that Vanat was recovering, but did not say for sure whether he would be able to take part in the match.
"Vanat is recovering. We will see. There are still 24 hours. Vlad came to the national team with a desire to play. We did not understand how long it would take him to recover from the injury. He wants to play for our country. There is still time, and I hope he will be ready," Rebrov said.
Ukraine, at the very least, needs to beat the Albanians to overtake them in the standings, which will allow it to take third place, which will allow it to play a match for retaining its League B registration with the team that took second place in League C.
Also, if the Czech Republic defeats Georgia and Ukraine defeats Albania, our team will take the second place, which will allow us to play in the butt matches for the A League against the team that took third place in the A League.
In the previous match, the Albanian national team narrowly defeated Ukraine (2:1). This victory was the first in the history of Albania in a confrontation with the Ukrainians. In total, Ukraine and Albania played 7 games, in which, as already mentioned, the Albanians won once, one was a draw, and Ukraine won the rest.
In this confrontation, bookmakers give a slight advantage to Ukraine - 2.3 odds. Albania's odds are 3.2, and the draw is 3.25.
The day before, the national team's forward Roman Yaremchuk emphasized that the Albanian national team is a pretty powerful team, but the players will focus on winning.
"We are playing away from home, and such matches are always different from home matches. Albania is a pretty powerful team. They have a good striker, a good defense line, and discipline in defense. We also have enough skilled players who can decide the fate of the match. We will focus on the fact that we need to win. We hope that we will have scoring chances to realize them. We want it to have a good psychological impact on us, so that each player relieves a little stress, feels confident and shows his best game," Yaremchuk said.
Portuguese João Pinheiro, who has already worked with Ukraine and Ukrainian teams, has been appointed as the main referee for the match. In particular, in September 2022, he officiated at the Armenia-Ukraine Nations League match, in which Ukraine recorded a 5-0 victory.
In early October of this year, the Portuguese refereed the Champions League group stage match between Shakhtar Donetsk and Italian side Atalanta, in which the Donetsk team suffered a crushing 0-3 defeat. In total, the Portuguese has already refereed six matches involving Ukrainian teams.
Recall
Ukraine's national team drew with Georgia in the fifth round of the UEFA Nations League group stage match. The match took place at the Adjarabet Arena in Batumi.