Turkey vs Ukraine 21/11/18

21 November 2018

Turkey and Ukraine are set to meet each other at the Antalya Arena in a friendly match that will see the hosts trying to end a 2-game losing streak.

After a narrow 1-0 defeat to Sweden at home, the Crescent-Stars have lost all chances of closing the gap on their rivals in the UEFA Nations League B, Group 2. Prior to a failure in front of the home crowd, Mircea Lucescu’s players have suffered a 2-0 loss to Russia on the road and played out a scoreless draw with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Not only Turkey failed to find the back of the net in all three previous games, but they’ve also missed out to keep a clean sheet eight times in the past nine matches. A terrible form that saw them securing just one triumph in the last seven encounters threatens to leave Lucescu jobless in case of another disappointment.

On the other hand, Ukraine suffered a devastating 4-1 defeat to Slovakia last week, but they’ve still managed to remain on top of the Nations League B, Group 1, thanks to three straight victories in the opening three fixtures. Before a miserable failure against the Falcons, Yellow-Blue were undefeated in nine consecutive matches. Andriy Shevchenko’s players have won five games in 2018, having been held to three draws in the process. However, in five out of the previous six road meetings, the Main Team failed to keep a clean sheet, having allowed eight goals in that period. Meanwhile, they’ve bagged at least one goal in seven out of the last ten encounters away from home.

Provisional line-up – Turkey:

Gk: Bolat Defense: Ayhan – Soyuncu – Celik – Ali Kaldirim Midfield: Gurler – Topal – Malli – Ozyakup Attack: Tosun – Karaman

Provisional line-up – Ukraine:

Gk: Pyatov Defense: Kryvtsov – Burda – Karavaev – Matvienko Midfield: Makarenko – Stepanenko – Malinovsky Attack: Konoplyanka – Kovalenko – Boryachuk