Mykhailo Mudryk has responded to Gianluigi Donnarumma, who sympathised with Ukraine after they weren't awarded a late penalty in a crucial European Championship qualifier against Italy on Monday night. The Chelsea winger was brought down by Bryan Cristante inside the 18-yard box but the referee waved play on, denying Ukraine the chance to score the match-winner and book a place at Euro 2024.
In the dying embers of the clash, Oleksandr Zubkov fired a cross into the box. Mudryk latched onto the Shakhtar Donetsk midfielder's pass, darting through the Italy defence. But, Cristante, who was shielding the heart of his side's backline, lunged in to intercept the delivery and brought the Blues ace down.
Mudryk was too quick for the Roma midfielder. As the 22-year-old winger clutched his ankle, there were tremendous calls for a spot-kick to be awarded but the Video Assistant Referee decided not to intervene.
A video of the incident quickly went viral on social media, and users were left baffled by the match officials' decision to not award Ukraine a penalty. After the game, Donnarumma told Italian publication Tuttomercatoweb that Mudryk's side could have easily been given a spot-kick.
"It was certainly needed, it was fundamental and we are very happy," said the Paris Saint-Germain goalkeeper. "It was a difficult, complicated match. They are an excellent team, we knew we had to suffer to bring home qualification for the European Championship.
"We did it in the best possible way, the whole team was united and compact, just as the coach asked. This gives us great joy, the desire to go to the European Championship and be protagonists."
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When pushed for a verdict on the controversial penalty incident, Donnarumma replied: "From there I didn’t understand very well, there are situations on the pitch Then reviewing the images, in my opinion it could have happened.
"But it’s fine like this, let’s say it’s fine like this. Now we don’t think about it, we think about celebrating and enjoying this hard-fought draw and from big team."
On Tuesday afternoon, Mudryk responded Donnarumma's comments. Captioning a screenshot of the article, the Chelsea star wrote: "Well played and congrats on qualifying."
Despite having missed out on automatic qualification, Ukraine have still got a chance to qualify in March via a playoffs. On March 21, 12 teams will take part in six semi-finals then three finals held on March 26. All the games are one-off and single-legged, handing players another chance to represent their country at Euro 2024.
