These past couple of weeks in Malta have been very stressful and time-consuming for many people, and with last weekend’s culmination, it was very easy for other things to get side-tracked. 

What with Malta’s great performance at the Small Nations Games and the national football team’s 1-0 over Ukraine this Tuesday, however, it seemed like Maltese athletes had a pretty awesome week.

23-year old Zach Muscat scored in the 14th minute with an impressive header that took Malta in the lead despite the difficult match-up with Ukraine. “We managed to be very compact, worked together in the defensive phase and also did well in the counter-attacks,” Muscat said in an interview yesterday. “It was a collective win because also there was also the defensive work of the strikers who worked hard to help us preserve the result.”

In fact, for the entire rest of the match (a whole 75 minutes), Malta managed to protect the result, making sure that Muscat’s goal did end up securing a victory for the team. This was young Muscat’s 21st appearance for the national team.

And even if this match was a Friendly, it couldn’t have come at a better time to act as a confident boost. The 2018 World Cup qualifying match against Slovenia is next for Malta this Saturday, and Muscat is hopeful that the team will keep this momentum going. “We must go out for the game on Saturday with the aim of giving everything and playing as a team,” he said. “And if we take the positives from the game with Ukraine, work on them in the coming days and remain concentrated, I think we will leave the stadium with our heads held high.”

As it stands in Malta’s Group F, England have already qualified to the 2018 World Cup with 13 points. Malta has yet to secure a point, but is hoping that will all change this Saturday.

Featured Photo by Paul Zammit Cutajar

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David Grech Urpani

Lovin Malta's Head of Content, Dave has been in journalism for the better half of the last decade. Prefers Instagram, but has been known to doomscroll on TikTok. Loves chicken, women's clothes and Kanye West (most of the time).