Ukraine was unlikely to beat Germany when they faced off in the first round of group play at Euro 2016 last weekend, but their struggles weren’t supposed to be this cruel. Ukraine played very well against Germany, and Germany quite honestly were boring, controlling the game with long spells of tepid possession. Still, Germany won 2-0.
Most would say that Ukraine’s efforts deserved a goal, and perhaps, everything being fair, they did enough to get one. But everything wasn’t fair on Sunday, because Germany’s Jerome Boateng isn’t fair; he didn’t get to be one of the top 2 center-backs in the world by being fair, and he certainly wasn’t going to start Sunday.
In the 37th minute with Germany already leading 1-0, Ukraine created a brilliant chance. Andriy Yarmolenko played a ball across Germany’s goal that left Germany completely exposed. Yevhen Konoplyanka played it right back across the face of goal. In most cases, two such passes would have been enough to twist a defense into a useless knot, but Boateng was there to meet it. Teasingly, it looked like he was doomed to score an own goal, but he somehow managed to contort his body and clear the ball off the line:
You really need to watch the slow motion replay to understand just how impressive Boateng’s clearance was:
I can confidently say this is the most athletic clearance you will see all year, and it just happened to give us one of the images of the year as well.
Holy s***. Photo: @Copa90 | Twitter
Like I said, it’s the most athletic clearance of the year.
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