JOIN USUkraine have suffered a worrying illness scare, just days before the Euro 2012 co-hosts play their opening match against Sweden, with 10 players suffering from stomach upset, coach Oleg Blokhin said after a 2-0 warm-up defeat by Turkey on Tuesday.
Influential midfielder Anatoly Tymoshchuk is being treated on a drip while striker Andriy Voronin is also ill.
"Tymoshchyk is still in bad condition, we have got him on a drip. And this is not funny. We have to wait for the doctors' verdict but the situation is far from funny," Blokhin told reporters after the defeat in Ingolstadt, Germany.
"I do not know the reason for the illness because we all ate different food. We have one week to recover...it's good that it did not happen on June 11,’’ he added.
Blokhin said defender Bohdan Butko and midfielder Denys Garmash were also afflicted but were well enough to start against Turkey. "If Butko and Garmash refused to play I could have cancelled the game because of a lack of players," he said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine team spokesman Oleksander Glyvinsky said the affected players were now on the road to recovery. “"They were out running this morning, so we would expect that they will all be fine for the opening game against Sweden," he told ‘Reuters’ in a telephone interview.