On the penultimate night of qualifiers, they were joined by Slovakia, who beat Luxembourg, while Ukraine, Slovenia and Sweden must take their chances in the playoffs.
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Slovakia beat Luxembourg 4-2 in Group C’s other highly anticipated clash to keep hold over second place and advance to the Euro 2016 finals, while Belarus and Macedonia drew 0-0 in a dead rubber.
Marca wrote: “The Ukrainian national team and people will be having nightmares about David de Gea for a few time to come”. Precisely, Kiev brings good memories to me: the Euro 2012 final.
Del Bosque made 10 changes to the side that sealed their place in France with a 4-0 win over Luxembourg on Friday with only Fabregas keeping his place.
Ukraine created many chances and breached Spain’s defence on several occasions, but they couldn’t penetrate the wide-stretched arms of De Gea, much to the disbelief of the opposition players.
De Gea was called into action for the first time as he turned Kravets’s shot from a narrow angle behind before somehow turning Rotan’s volley over the bar with an outstretched leg on 15 minutes.
Oleg Kuzmin put the Russians ahead with his first worldwide goal on 33 minutes and Alexander Kokorin added the second from the penalty spot four minutes later to ensure that his side finished ahead of Sweden.
With Ukraine chasing Slovakia for that last automatic qualification spot in Group C, the pressure was on Slovakia to pick up three points against Luxembourg and secure qualification and in the opening minutes, Slovakia certainly looked determined to get the important opening goal.
Ukraine’s Andriy Yarmolenko, front and Spain’s Cesar Azpilicueta fights for the ball during …
Among those in the crowd was Chelsea’s Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho.
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De Gea endured a hard start to the 2015-16 campaign as he was temporarily dropped in favour of Sergio Romero at Manchester United when his future at the club was uncertain due to strong interest from Real Madrid.
