{"id":1304687,"date":"2025-10-11T00:42:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T21:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/reykjavik-shootout-ukraine-overcomes-icelandic-resistance\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T00:42:30","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T21:42:30","slug":"reykjavik-shootout-ukraine-overcomes-icelandic-resistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/reykjavik-shootout-ukraine-overcomes-icelandic-resistance\/","title":{"rendered":"Reykjavik Shootout: Ukraine Overcomes Icelandic Resistance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ukrainian national team secured its first victory in the 2026 World Cup qualifying tournament, defeating Iceland 5-3 in Reykjavik. The scoreboard reveals a real thriller unfolding on the field.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Ukrainians opened the scoring first. In the 14th minute, Ruslan Malinovskyi scored, abandoned to his fate by the Icelandic defenders near the penalty spot. Looking ahead, it’s worth noting that the Vikings put up a worthy, even fierce, fightback. But whatever they managed to claw out in this match was wasted by the terrible performance of their defenders.<\/p>\n

After conceding a goal, the Icelanders took the initiative. First, they hit the woodwork of Anatoly Trubin’s goal, and then Trubin himself was hit into the near corner by\u00a0<\/b><\/strong>Ellertson. Unfortunately, the responsibility for such missed goals lies entirely on the goalkeeper’s shoulders.<\/p>\n

From hero to antihero\u2014one wrong move. That’s Ellertson. The first half was already heading toward a draw when the Ukrainian team suddenly exploded into action. Almost into stoppage time, a Ukrainian attack ended with Ellertson, trying to save the situation near his own goal, missing the ball with his foot. Oleksiy Gutsulyak capitalized on the opportunity to make the score 2-1 in Ukraine’s favor.<\/p>\n

A few more minutes passed. The referee was clearly preparing to send the teams to halftime when Iceland lost Malinovskyi again. Ruslan scored twice with a shot from outside the penalty area, giving Ukraine a three-goal lead.<\/p>\n

1-3 at halftime on their home field. And two goals “in the locker room” to boot! Anyone would have crumbled under that, but not the Vikings. In the second half, having freshened up the game with substitutions, the Icelanders equalized. Gfundmundsson scored in the 59th and 75th minutes.<\/p>\n

The Icelandic weather (rain poured throughout the match), the Icelandic stands enthusiastically supporting their team, and the 3-3 lead after 3-1\u2014all of this cast doubt on Ukraine’s prospects in this match. However, on the field, something shifted in favor of the yellow-and-blues again. Serhiy Rebrov’s men, having lost their goal lead, pressed forward. And then Ivan Gutsulyak made it 4-3 with a desperate shot from 20 meters. The ball bounced into the goal, so there can be no blame for the goalkeeper.<\/p>\n

More criticism of the Icelandic team’s defenders arose three minutes after the Vikings conceded their fourth goal. In the 88th minute, Iceland’s defenders lost Oleh Ocheretko just outside the penalty area, and he scored a long-range shot to make the score 5-3 in Ukraine’s favor.<\/p>\n

The Vikings tried again to rally and salvage the match, but time was running out. The score remained unchanged. A crucial victory for the Ukrainian team over their main rival for second place in the group, which is where Ukraine currently sits after this game.<\/p>\n

Next Monday, the national team will play its next match against Azerbaijan (we absolutely must win!), and Iceland will play against France, which is unrivaled in our group.<\/p>\n

Also follow “Pryamy”<\/strong> on Facebook<\/a> , Twitter<\/a> , Telegram<\/a> and Instagram<\/a> .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ukrainian national team secured its first victory in the 2026 World Cup qualifying tournament, defeating Iceland 5-3 in Reykjavik. The scoreboard reveals a real thriller unfolding on the field. The Ukrainians opened the scoring first. In the 14th minute, Ruslan Malinovskyi scored, abandoned to his fate by the Icelandic defenders near the penalty spot. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":1304679,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76871,76895],"class_list":["post-1304687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1304687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1304688,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304687\/revisions\/1304688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1304679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1304687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1304687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}