Football news

Romania striker Valentin Mihaile shared his expectations from the first match at Euro 2024 against Ukraine.

"I am very happy to be here with the national team and I can only hope that we will all be in optimal form and will give our best from the moment the starting whistle sounds in the first match against Ukraine," the official UEFA website quotes Mihaile as saying.

Zhytomyr "Polesie" presented a new logo of the club.

Interestingly, the new logo of "Polesie" is very similar to the logo of the English club "Wolverhampton", whose nickname is also "wolves".

Recall, last season "Polesie" took 5th place in the Ukrainian championship and for the first time in its history will play in European cups (qualification of the Conference League).

Romania's head coach Edward Iordanescu shared his expectations from Euro 2024.

"For the country, the fans and all the Romanian people it is a celebration. Together with Romanian soccer fans, we experienced some unique moments during qualification. This great campaign was received by the country with great enthusiasm. We felt joy and a warm attitude. We felt that people were supporting the national team again.

I believe that if we continue on this path, we will be able to create some unforgettable moments for Romania and Romanian fans at the European Championship. That's all I hope for. We must move step by step, enjoy every moment, every day, every hour, every minute spent at the tournament, treat it with the utmost responsibility, giving soccer our best.

It has been a long time since Romania was last represented at a major tournament. Our fans have experienced a lot of difficult moments during this time. Our hard work was based on trust and on consistency - every player understood that he had to give 200 percent - not 100 percent, but 200 percent. This made us believe that we could progress both together and individually. We brought honor to Romania, but there is still a lot of work ahead," Iordanescu was quoted by UEFA's official website.

Spain head coach Luis de la Fuente commented on the confident victory of his team over Croatia in the match of the 1st round of the group stage of Euro 2024.

"I am very happy for all of us who worked tirelessly for this victory. We set high goals for ourselves, our team is like a big family. I'm very happy for everyone. But now we can't be in the clouds. We started well, and it puts us in a slightly safer situation, but now we have to fully focus on the match with Italy.

We showed a very solid game. I'm very happy with the way we showed ourselves in every component, on every part of the pitch. Such widespread concentration for such a young team - it brings a special satisfaction. My boys are confident and believe in what we can achieve together. Superstars work for the sake of the team as much as anyone else. My team shows all people how people can unite together for a common task," de la Fuente was quoted as saying by UEFA's official website.

Former head coach of Dynamo Kyiv and the Ukrainian national team Jozsef Szabo shared his thoughts on Euro 2024.

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Croatia's head coach Zlatko Dalic commented on the defeat against Spain in the match of the 1st round of the group stage of Euro 2024.

"This is not a good start, and I can only congratulate the Spanish team. We lacked energy and aggression, and we conceded the first goal after an unnecessary mistake. The worst thing is that we conceded after a corner kick in the added time of the first half. We should not have let it happen. And at that moment the outcome of the game was already predetermined.

We will look into what went wrong. We gave the opponent a lot of free space, gave him time to make decisions. There are still two matches left in the group. Now we need to think only about them. We need two wins in these matches," Dalic is quoted by the UEFA official website.

Ukrainian referee Mykola Balakin will work the Euro 2024 group round match between Austria and France.

According to the UEFA press service, Balakin has been appointed as the fourth referee for this match. In addition to the Ukrainian, Spanish referees led by Jesus Gil Manzano will work at the meeting. Assistants to the chief referee: Diego Barbero Sevilla and Angel Nevado Rodriguez.

The match will traditionally feature the VAR system.

It will be recalled that the Austria vs France match will take place on Monday, June 17, in Düsseldorf. The match starts at 22:00 Kyiv time.

Former Shakhtar and Romanian national team striker Ciprian Marica shared his expectations from the Romania vs Ukraine match in the first round of the Euro 2024 group tournament.

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Ukraine defender Yukhym Konoplya shared his thoughts on the potential of the Ukrainian team before the start of Euro 2024.

- What is the ceiling of the national team of Ukraine?

- I don't really see a ceiling, because so far, in my opinion, we have not shown our maximum potential and the maximum level of play we are capable of in any game.

- Why do you think that is?

- It is because, probably, the national team is a little bit unplayed, unassembled, it has always been like that.

But now we have had more time to prepare, so I think we have reached a peak in terms of physical condition after the last game. I think that from the first game we will be as ready as possible both mentally and physically.

England defender Kieran Trippier is delighted with his teammate Phil Foden's performance.

"It's hard to single out one person because we're all really good, but Phil Foden is Phil Foden. He's always been one of my favorite players. I can go back to the camp now and find him with the ball. He is obsessed with soccer.

Everyone sees what he does on the field, but they don't see what he does in training. His vision, technique and ability are frightening," Kieran was quoted as saying by Sky Sports.

Former Dynamo Kyiv forward Viktor Leonenko shared his expectations for Euro 2024, which kicked off in Germany last Friday.

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Former Belgium national team coach Rene Vandereycken criticized the current head coach of the Belgian team Domenico Tedesco for not including the latter in the bid for Euro 2024 because of a personal conflict with the country's top goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois.

"It is clear that there are two people involved in the conflict and mistakes have been made on both sides. But if there is such a conflict, shouldn't the head coach of the country's national team make the first step to resolve it? After all, he alone is responsible for the national team to go to the European Championship with the best players, for the best choice to be made.

With all the respect I have for Kuhn Castells, Matz Sels and Tomas Kaminski (goalkeepers from Belgium's Euro 2024 bid - ed.), Courtois is much stronger. So it's just not the best choice. And the blame for that lies with Tedesco," Vandereijken said in a commentary for Het Nieuwsblad.