Injury-hit Ukraine to face Iran

Injury-hit Ukraine will play Iran in a friendly on 21 August as their last warm-up before the start of their EURO 2004 ™ qualifying campaign.

Injury woe
Coach Leonid Buryak was forced to pick an unfamiliar squad, as seven players are missing through injury. AC forward Andriy Shevchenko is missing with a knee ligament injury while defenders Vladislav Vashuk, Serhiy Fedorov, Olexander Holovko, Dmytro Parfionov and Andriy Nesmachny are also sidelined.

Bakharev named
Among the suprise names called up for the match was that of FC Shakhtar Donetsk's Russian midfield player Alexey Bakharev, who only received a Ukrainian passport on Friday. However, Bakharev played for Russia's Under-21 side and it is unclear whether he will be eligible to play for Ukraine.

Ukraine squad
Shovkovsky, Reva, Shutkov, Starostiak, Popov, Tymoschuk, Yaxmanytsky, Snytko, Skrypnyk, Dmytrulin, Ivanov, Khoma, Bakharev, Zubov, Pestiakov, Kormiltsev, Kalynychenko, Lutsenko, Musolytyn, Serebrennikov, Vorobiei, Melaschenko, Kabanov, Voronin, Rebrov