'Victory was for our country': Ukraine boss Oleksandr Petrakov dedicates win over Scotland

Ukraine manager Oleksandr Petrakov dedicated his side’s victory over Scotland in the World Cup play-offs to his war-torn nation.

The Blue and Yellow are one win away now from making it to Qatar 2022 after defeating Scotland 3-1 at Hampden Park thanks to goals from Andriy Yarmolenko, Roman Yaremchuk and Artem Dovbyk, while Callum McGregor netted for the hosts.

The visitors impressed in the victory despite several players having not played in months due to football being stopped in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.

They’ll now move on to play Wales on Sunday in the play-off final.

Ukraine players celebrate in front of their fans after Roman Yaremchuk made it 2-0 to the visitors at Hampden Park. Picture: SNS

“Basically I have no emotions, to be perfectly honest with you. All of my emotions are left on the football pitch,” said Petrakov.

“This victory was not for me. It was not for our team members. It was for our country. So this is a huge win for Ukraine.”

Manchester City ace Oleksandr Zinchenko believes he and his team-mates need to be at their absolute best to complete the ambition on Sunday by defeating Wales in Cardiff.

“We have a dream as a team to make it to the World Cup finals and we have one more game to do that.” he told Sky Sports. “We need to take it otherwise this game isn’t going to mean anything.

“We played quite well except, maybe, 20 minutes in the second half. Scotland is a great team with unbelievable players, so we knew it was going to be tough. But we played well, scored three goals and could’ve scored more.

“We need to play the best performance of our lives on Sunday and then we’ll see what’s going to happen.”

Message from the editor

Thank you for reading this article. If you haven't already, please consider supporting our sports coverage with a digital sports subscription.