Kanibolotskiy dazzled by Spanish superiority

Spain were simply too good for Ukraine according to Anton Kanibolotskiy who admitted that Pavlo Yakovenko's Group B stragglers failed to handle the pressure in Denmark. Anton Kanibolotskiy conceded that Ukraine's plans to stop Spain disintegrated in the face of their opponents' superiority as their elimination from the Under-21 finals was confirmed by a 3-0 defeat in Herning.
Ukraine began the evening bottom of Group B and their fate was effectively sealed by two goals inside 27 minutes by Juan Mata and Adrián. Mata added a third with a 72nd-minute penalty, leaving Kanibolotskiy to nominate Luis Milla's group winners as European champions-in-waiting.
The goalkeeper told UEFA.com: "Things don't always turn out as you want them to. It's difficult to play against a team like this. I think Spain are the strongest team we've faced at this championship and they can easily go on and win it. We planned to start out defensively and try to get to half-time at 0-0 and then look for opportunities to score. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way."
Although Ukraine lost Denys Garmash to a red card when fouling Mata to give away the penalty for Spain's third goal, they had the chance to reduce the deficit three minutes later when David de Gea brought down Roman Zozulya. Yevhen Konoplyanka's tame penalty was easy pickings for De Gea although Kanibolotskiy admitted that by then it barely mattered. "It's hard to play with only ten players against 11 players of such quality. I think we lost the will to win because things had gone completely against us."
For midfielder Volodymyr Chesnakov, things could scarcely have gone worse. "Nobody thought we'd lose this badly even though we anticipated that Spain would control possession. There are not many teams who can impose their game against Spain – usually it is Spain dictating the pattern. We tried to impose ourselves but failed."
Reflecting on a disappointing fortnight from Pavlo Yakovenko's men, the FC Vorskla Poltava player added that they had failed to realise their pre-tournament ambitions. "The press had high hopes and were praising us, and we also hoped we would succeed and at least get out of the group," said Chesnakov. "In the first game [the 2-1 loss to Czech Republic] everything went wrong. We were happy with the second game [0-0 with England], it was a good match but we were obviously not happy with the result."
Kanibolotskiy offered his own views on Ukraine's demise, suggesting they had been unable to handle the expectations. "Perhaps they were too high. We felt the pressure," said the FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk custodian. "This is a positive experience, though, because you don't get to play at such a level too often. Every player will take something useful from this championship."