End of Ukrainian Euphoria

Co hosts Ukraine's euphoria ended yesterday as they lost to the mighty France 2-0 in their Group D encounter.

Ukrainian fans were on high after their 2-1 victory over Sweden in their opener, and their fans were hoping for the same result against France. 

 The Ukranian coach Oleh Blokhin, however has already indicated about the teams position against France, and his talks were very clear after the loss as he said, "As I said, the win against Sweden didn't mean anything, so if we thought we were through, we were wrong. I think some players thought that, and we'll have a serious conversation with them."

French on the other hand were delighted as their long wait for a win in a major tournament finally ended.

Though the match started in the scheduled time, but it was stopped just 4 minutes after the kick off, thanks to torrential rain and lightening.

The match resumed after a break of almost one hour, and Benzema was on attack right away as he shot one form the left of the box, but the home goal keeper Pyatov saved it.

The Laurent Blanc side had the clear intention of getting a lead in the first half, desperately attacked the Ukrainian goal line.

Home goalkeeper Pyatov proved to be hurdle for the Les Bleus, as he brilliant saved Philippe Mexes header away from the top corner following Samir Nasri's free-kick delivery in the 39th minute.

The first half ended goalless, much to the delight of the home fans and disappointment of the French side.

The second half stared with increased tempos of both the side, as they looked for an opening. Hero of the last match against Sweden, Shevchenko narrowly missed the target in the 49th minute, which surely got Laurent to the edge of his seat.

The wait finally ended for France in the 53rd minute when Jeremy Menez took one touch to knock Karim Benzema's pass onto his left foot, and then fired the ball low and hard into the bottom right corner.

The victory for French was sealed just 3 minutes later as Cabaye doubled the score, which silenced the home fans.

Though there were attacks form the Ukrainian side towards the dying moments, but there was no significant development that could bring them back into the match.