Well aside from Ukraine boss Oleg Blokhin taking some cheap shots at our boy, which I'll get to in a minute, Andriy Voronin, the bard arse striker we got on a free transfer from Leverkusen this past summer did not take kindly to his International manager's words late in his country's 2-1 loss to Italy yesterday. Voronin assessed the situation which led to a toe-to-toe confrontation by saying that his coach patronized him which was something that he as a man was not going to stand for.
Blokhin sounds like a real idiot to me and if Voronin never plays another match under the clown, you know I won't shed a tear. After the match, the Ukrainian manager had some alarmingly unprofessional things to say about his player. It was almost as if he was trying to pass the blame of the loss and his country's dire chances of qualifying for the Euro onto Voronin.
He basically called the player unfit, said he weakened the squad when he was on the pitch and was the reason that Italy scored their second goal. That's funny, a striker is the reason the other team scoring? What? Was he playing behind the midfielders and defenders? That's ridiculous.
I, for one, could care less. Voronin isn't getting any younger and at 28, doesn't have many years of top level ball left in him, so if he never plays for his country again, all for the better. The fact that he didn't even start against Italy should be enough to tell him that he's not really wanted there anyhow. I can understand Shevchenko starting in front of him, but not anyone else including Andriy Vorobei nor Oleksiy Byelik. The less he plays for his country, the more likely he'll be fit for us, which is why I expect him to play Saturday.
