Football news

Liverpool head coach Jurgen Klopp visited his team's empty Anfield home stadium.

Klopp will leave Liverpool at the end of this season, as previously announced. The German specialist wants to take a break from coaching for a while.

As a reminder, Klopp will play his last match in charge of Liverpool on Sunday, 19 May. At Anfield, the Merseysiders will host Wolverhampton in the 38th round of the English Championship. The match starts at 18:00 Kyiv time.

Shakhtar midfielder Taras Stepanenko commented on the victory over Vorskla (2-1) in the Ukrainian Cup final.

"We relaxed after conceding a goal. There were a few alarming calls, a couple of pitches. We relaxed early, because it could have been 2:2 and another 30 minutes. It is good that it ended like that. "Vorskla" played according to the same scheme.

This is the second time when we catch up with Dynamo for trophies. Then Dynamo broke away. Now we have caught up with them, and I really believe that next year we will be able to overtake Dynamo," Stepanenko said.

For the first time in its history, French side Brest won the right to play in European competitions.

Brest owes this achievement to PSG, who beat Nice away in the 32nd round of the French Championship. Thus, the club from the Brittany region will no longer fall below 4th place in the Ligue 1 standings at the end of the season.

Fourth place entitles Brest to start its European Cup journey from the third qualifying round of the Champions League, but Eric Roy's men can also qualify for the most prestigious club tournament directly if they beat Toulouse in the last round of the national championship and Lille, who are currently third, do not defeat Nice. At the moment, both Brest and Lille have an equal number of points - 58 each.

It will be recalled that three clubs from France will directly qualify for the Champions League next season, two of which are already known - PSG and Monaco.

"Salzburg are interested in the transfer of Zorya defender Arseniy Batagov. This was reported by journalist Volodymyr Zverov.

It is reported that Salzburg's scouts have already attended several of Zorya's European Cup matches this season, watching Batagov's performance.

Earlier, there was also information that Dynamo Kyiv was also interested in the defender.

The head coach of the Ukrainian national team Serhii Rebrov spoke about his work in the national team, as well as the preparation of our national team for Euro 2024.

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Sports doctor Dmytro Babeliuk assessed the severity of the injury to Ukraine midfielder Mykhailo Mudryk, who was injured in yesterday's match for his club, Chelsea.

"Mykhailo hit the Brighton defender in the shoulder with his jaw. The blow may not have been very hard, but it was quite accurate, because Misha immediately fell to the turf and took a long time to recover.

From his symptoms, we can assume that he was complaining of vision problems (flickering in the eyes, double vision, reaction to light - all these are symptoms of concussion). Most likely, he also had a headache. The doctors tested Misha for quite a long time. Traditionally, doctors follow the SCAT5 protocol, which is used to diagnose concussions.

Taking into account all the tests and the player's condition, it was decided to use concussion sub and follow the protocol. The player's safety is paramount, and concussion symptoms can appear over time.

As a rule, a player is given 6-10 days of rest after a concussion, depending on the condition. Therefore, there is a risk that Mikhail will not play in the last round. However, there are no signs yet that the injury is serious and could threaten his participation in Euro 2024.

The problem doesn't really look terrible, but the Ukrainian needs a quality break and recovery now. A minimum of physical activity, stress and social media, more sleep, relaxation and taking care of his emotional and mental state.

I think Mykhailo will be in perfect condition for the national team's training camp in early June," Babeliuk wrote on his Telegram channel.

The Spanish La Liga has announced the nominees for the best coach of the 2023/2024 season. Five specialists will compete for the award.

Carlo Ancelotti (Real Madrid), Michel Sanchez (Girona), Diego Simeone (Atletico Madrid), Ernesto Valverde (Athletic Bilbao), and Marcelino Garcia Toral (Villarreal) are among the contenders for the best coach title.

Artem Gagarin, the vice-president of Kryvbas Krivoy Rog, told what he thinks about the team's head coach Yuriy Vernidub, under whose leadership the Red-Blacks won bronze medals of the Ukrainian championship of the season-2023/24.

"Let's start with the fact that Yuriy Nikolaevich, first of all, is just an awesome coach and a great motivator. And all the talk about farthing, about someone being some kind of talisman of future victories, it's all made-up bikes. However, if that's the case in our case, we don't mind.

But if we just believe in the Vernidub factor, it will not bring us to good. We need to work. To develop infrastructure, marketing, to deal with the academy and so on. When the whole team, the whole club works for the result, it will come. But of course, having such a coach is a big plus and a great help for our ambitions," UA-Football quoted Gagarin as saying.

Journalist Vladimir Zverov told how one of the referees of the First and Second leagues was detained by the TCK.

"The PFL referee, who works on the matches of the First and Second leagues, was travelling to Odessa to referee the match of amateurs. In Odessa at the railway station he was met by representatives of the TCC and taken away. He spent a few days with them.

Then he was released, now he is already at home. But the story has become a precedent, which is already spoken about in the UAF. Because the referees have no reservation and there is no way to get one. Yes, the UAF is a critical infrastructure facility, which means it has the right to book 50% of its staff, but the arbitrators are not employees of this organisation, they cooperate with it as FOPs.

This situation is now, to put it mildly, stressing many arbitrators. It is unlikely to affect the UPL, but the referees of the First and Second leagues ask a lot of questions to their management and want to understand what will happen next, what is their status in the current realities. A total of 300 referees work in all leagues of Ukraine. If they are mobilised, we will have to look for their replacements somewhere," Zverov said on the air of the Youtube channel PROFUTBOL Digital.

Head coach of London Chelsea Mauricio Pochettino spoke about the head injury of the Ukrainian midfielder of his team Mykhailo Mudryk, which he received in yesterday's match of the championship of England with Brighton (2:1).

"Mudryk is not okay, we are still continuing to check his condition. He got a little dizzy and we decided to use the substitution, which is provided for cases of suspected concussion.

According to the regulations, after such a substitution a player cannot play for the next seven days. Therefore, Mudrick will not be able to participate in the next game (the final round of the championship of England, Chelsea - Bournemouth - ed.), but I hope that this is nothing terrible," - quotes Pochettino The Standard.

Former Romanian goalkeeper Marius Bratu has revealed that his compatriot, Laszlo Boloni, was one step away from becoming the head coach of Dynamo Kiev.

"I was one step away from moving with Boloni to Dynamo Kyiv as the goalkeeping coach of that team. But in the end, I ended up in Saudi Arabia," Fanatik quotes Bratu as saying.

Apparently, we are talking about the events of early 2007, when there were rumours in the Romanian media that Boloni, who was then without a club, was interested in Dynamo Kyiv. Now this 71-year-old specialist is coaching the French Metz, which is in the transition zone (16th place with 18 participants in the tournament) a round before the end of Ligue 1.

News from the opponents of Ukraine's national team in the Euro 2024 group. The Slovak national team is one of the first teams participating in the European Championship will begin preparations for this tournament.

Since the Slovakian championship will end next Saturday, exactly a week later, on 23 May, the Slovak national team will start training camp in the town of Shamorin, which, however, will last only four days.

The Slovaks will train with only 20 players in Shamorin, as the foreign nationals will continue to play for their clubs at the end of the season.

In addition, the Slovak national team at the upcoming training camp will have to work without its head coach, Francesco Calzona: he is also the coach of Italian Napoli, whose last match of the current season will be held only on 26 May. In the absence of the national team helmsman, the training process in Chamorin will be managed by one of his assistants, Marek Gamšík.

"This training camp is a priority to maintain the physical fitness of the guys who finished the season in their clubs earlier than others. Clubs were not obliged to let their representatives go to this training camp, so we have attracted a lot of young guys," Gamšík said about the upcoming training camp.