KIEV, July 1: Ukraine on Saturday forgave its footballers a 3-0 thumping at the hands of Italy in a World Cup quarter-final, just grateful the team had gotten to the last eight in their debut appearance.

“The end of a fairy tale,” headlined the Gazeta po-Kievsky daily.

“Ukraine's squad couldn't extend the fairy tale in Germany having lost to the Italians 0-3. But it doesn't matter. The only thing we can say is: Thank you!” the paper wrote.

A hopelessly outclassed Ukraine may have been crushed by the Italians, but to their fans at home the only thing that mattered was their appearance in the last eight — the best result of any ex-Soviet republic at the Cup since the fall of the Iron Curtain.

“For the first time, even though the squad lost, there is no bitterness of defeat,” Yuryi Rybchinsky, a poet, said on ‘Third Time,’ a late-night sport talk show immediately after the match in Hamburg.

“We ended up in the last eight while ranked 45” in FIFA world rankings, he said.

“We were among the eight strongest teams in the world,” said Olexander Chubarov, a former national trainer, on the same show. “That's something.”

President Viktor Yushchenko, who flew in to Hamburg for the match, went to the locker room after the game and congratulated the players on their accomplishments.“Today each Ukrainian can be proud of our team,” his office quoted him as saying.

The feeling was shared by the thousands of fans who had gathered to watch Friday's match on giant screens throughout Ukrainian cities.

“Of course I'm disappointed,” said one 20-something in central Kiev, a Ukrainian flag wrapped around his shoulders. “But they defied all expectations to get this far. So I'm not crushed. Next time.”

In the western city of Lviv, the crowd erupted following the defeat in a rendition of the classic Queen song “We are the Champions” and “Get Up!” by Ukrainian band Okean Elzy.

Ukraine's head coach Oleg Blokhin was likewise philosophical.

“I'm disappointed at losing but completely satisfied with our performance considering it was our first World Cup,” he told reporters in Hamburg.

“We were among the best teams, we made it to the last eight, as a coach I have to be very happy with that. The sides which have made it to this stage are worthy of being world champions, and we almost made it.”—AFP