Ukraine will advance beyond the group stage in next year’s European soccer championship, at least that’s what a majority of Internet-using soccer fans said.
Although the Ukrainian team doesn’t know who their Euro 2012 group opponents will be – the final draw doesn’t take place until December – an April online study of adult soccer fans conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology said that 66 percent of respondents believe their team will advance.
They have most of history on their side. Only once has a host country not advanced past the group stage of the European soccer championship ever since it was first held in 1960.
And that was in the previous tournament in 2008 when neither co-hosts Switzerland, nor Austria moved ahead.
“Soccer fans are fiercely patriotic, they always believe to the end,” said Oleksandr Krasnovsky, development manager of KIIS’s InPoll online research project.
Yet despite the upbeat outlook of the study’s respondents, 65 percent in the same poll assessed Ukraine’s performance in the last six months as “mediocre” or “mostly poor.”
But one expert pointed out that the survey was conducted before Oleh Blokhin was re-appointed as team manager.
The former golden ball holder and Dynamo Kyiv legend took the Ukrainian side to the 2006 World Cup quarter-finals, the farthest any post-Soviet team has advanced on the world stage.
“Blokhin is maximalist, Ukraine’s chances with him have increased significantly – plus we’ll have the moral advantage of playing on home turf with the support of fans,” said Valentyn Shcherbachov, TRK Sport Ukraina’s director.
He added that the goal of advancing past the group stage is the goal of every host nation.
“If Blokhin can patriotically fire up his team, then they’ll pull through but prospects get foggy after that.”
Oh, and roughly a third of soccer fans who use the internet are women, something marketers should think about.
Kyiv Post staff writer Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected]
