A soft penalty scored by Tsygankov on 72 minute gave Ukraine victory over a transformed Malta side yesterday in Trnava. This was Malta’s fourth defeat in the group but it was surely te best performance so far.

Facing another uphill struggle, the Maltese still smarting from the opaque performance against mighty England gave a very good account of themselves, sharing the exchanges with their opponents for long stretches of the game.

It was only in the second half that Ukraine had the upper hand, but still the Maltese never lost their composure. Malta lost goalkeeper Henry Bonello minutes before the end of the first half, with the Hamrun custodian apparently suffering a fractured arm. His substitute Matthew Grech had a very good game making some excellent saves especially in the second half, and was only beaten by Tsygankov’s penalty.

Marcolini made three changes to the side that faced England on Friday with Yankam, Camenzuli and Jean Borg starting instead of Kristensen, Cain Attard and Ferdinando Apap.

The Maltese settled down quickly, applying good pressure, many a times forcing the Ukrainians to commit several errors. Bonello came to the rescue saving off Sudakov, with Ukraine’s best chance coming to Vanat who hit hit wide from an ideal position.

At the other end Malta had some very good moves with Jones testing Trubin with a low shot and with the same Jones missing the best chance of the game when he first-timed inches wide from an ideal position.

Just before the break came Bonello’s injury after a rough tackle by Vanat who was also shown the yellow card. Matthew Grech was immediately called in action making a brilliant shot off a Stepanenko dipper.

On the resumption, as expected Ukraine increased the pressure, but apart from a couple of melee’s in front of Grech, the

Malta defence was never in danger. On 52 minutes the French referee consulted the VAR to award Ukraine the first penalty, another harsh and disputed decision. But from the penalty spot Yarmolenko could only hit the crossbar.

Twenty minutes later the second penalty for Ukraine, a very harsh decision with the referee refusing to consult the VAR. Tsygankov made no mistake for what proved to be the winner.

In the last moments of the game Marcolini introduced Jurgen Degabriele and Jake Grech but the side missed the last pass in the final meters, missing a couple of good attacking situations.

In the end Ukraine got the three points to move to second place in the table, but Malta did not deserve to leave the field empty handed.