Ukraine

In 1998 and 2002 Ukraine narrowly missed reaching the World Cup finals - both times losing in the play-offs.

When Ukraine failed to qualify for Euro 2004, they appointed a new manager Oleg Blokhin, who as a player in 1975 was European Footballer of the Year.

Ukraine World Cup profile continues below

Ukraine have the star striker Chelsea's Andriy Shevchenko, who was 2004 European Footballer of the Year.

Ukraine should be a force to be reckoned with up-front, being able to call upon not only Shevchenko, but also Andriy Vorobey and Andrey Voronin supported by the goal-scoring midfielder Ruslan Rotan.

Ukraine got off to a disappointing start, beaten 4-0 by Spain in their first match. It was a completely different story in the second match when Ukraine defeated Saudi Arabia a 4-0. Then, Ukraine beat Tunisia 1-0 and so qualified for the last 16 as second place in Group H.

Ukraine had a dull goalless draw with Switzerland, but won the penalty shoot-out 3-0 and so qualified for the quarter-finals.

However, that proved the end of Ukraine's run, with Italy beating them fairly easily 3-0.

Ukraine Squad by shirt number: 1 Olexandr Shovkovskiy 2 Andriy Nesmachniy 3 Olexandr Yatsenko 4 Anatoliy Tymoschuk 5 Volodymyr Yezerskiy 6 Andriy Rusol 7 Andriy Shevchenko 8 Oleg Shelayev 9 Oleg Gusev 10 Andriy Voronin 11 Serhiy Rebrov 12 Andrei Pyatov 13 Dmytro Chigrynskiy 14 Andriy Gusin 15 Artem Milevskiy 16 Andriy Vorobey 17 Vladislav Vashchuk 18 Serhiy Nazarenko 19 Maxim Kalinichenko 20 Oleksiy Byelik 21 Ruslan Rotan 22 Viacheslav Sviderskiy 23 Bohdan Shust