France held as Shevchenko goal earns 2-2 draw for Ukraine

Striker Andriy Shevchenko's early second-half goal earned Ukraine a 2-2 draw with France in their final Euro 2008 Group B qualifier on Wednesday.

France, who had already qualified for next year's finals, finished as runners-up - three points behind Italy - while Ukraine took fourth spot.

Ukraine, beset by injuries, had led through Andriy Voronin before goals from Thierry Henry and Sidney Govou put France 2-1 up.

"It was not an easy match against a strong team who put us under pressure," France coach Raymond Domenech told French channel TF1.

"We wanted to show everybody that we did not need anybody's help to qualify. We would have needed a draw (had Italy not beaten Scotland at the weekend) and we got it. We suffered at times but it was an interesting match."

An early goal from Voronin from the edge of the area gave Ukraine, humbled 2-0 by Lithuania on Saturday, a 14th-minute lead.

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But Henry took advantage of Claude Makelele's nifty footwork to shoot past Andriy Pyatov six minutes later and Govou added a second on 34 minutes.

Shevchenko equalised a minute into the second half with a looping header.

"We had the best position almost throughout the whole match and were quite aggressive," Ukraine coach Oleg Blokhin said.