Ex-employee of UAF Volodymyr Chorno-Ivanov spoke about the failed performance of the youth national team of Ukraine (U-19) in the elite round of Euro-2023 (U-19). We will remind, "blue and yellow" lost all matches in their group, losing not only to Spain and Denmark, but also to... Luxembourg!
Andriy Pavelko, president of UAF, chief responsible for the development of Ukrainian football"Summary of the "lamb" drive of the national youth national team of Ukraine U-19 based on the results of its performance in the elite round of the UEFA European Championship, which ended on Tuesday, March 28, 2023.
At the beginning of their journey, the team born in 2004 started almost perfectly. Firstly, in the status of the U-15 national team, in the spring of 2019, it played five international friendly matches. Secondly, already in the status of the U-16 team, in the fall of the same year, there are four more matches. The year 2020 began with the Aegean Sea Cup, traditional for the institute of UAF/FFU national teams. An international tournament held annually by the FA of Turkey. That's four more matches.
Then the global pandemic of COVID-19 began, and after March 2020, this team, like all other youth national teams of Ukraine, did not play a single international friendly match until February 24, 2022. The exception, for some reason, happened only in August 2021. Then the Victor Bannikov Memorial raffle took place with the participation of the national team born in 2005 (four home games).
As a result, the 2004 team took part in only two NTZs ahead of the UEFA mini-tournaments: qualification and the elite round of the 2022/23 UEFA European U-19 Championship. At the same time, our national team scored 9 points in the first qualifying stage, which, given the lack of international game practice and the war in Ukraine, should be considered either a miracle or a feat. In the future, the fairy tale was not continued.
Yes, football players are trained by clubs. But the national team naturally needs training through international friendly matches in order to simply select football players capable of playing at the international level and, at the same time, to form a team. If you have no game practice for three years, two days are given, at best, to prepare for the first match of the UEFA mini-tournament (19.03.2023 - the start date of the NTZ, 22.03.2023 - the date of the first match on the territory of Spain), then, it is very likely, even with great talents and appropriate coaching qualifications, to count on success in the conditions of frankly high competition of the European Championship.
While most national football associations of UEFA members were looking for any opportunity to prepare their national youth national teams in the conditions of COVID-19, the UAF, for some reason, minimized the volume of international practice of its own institute of national teams to such a level that, frankly, it is already difficult to talk about representative teams UAF as a whole organizational structure, or about the institution of national teams in the generally accepted sense.
Amat victoria curam or victory loves preparation. She was completely speechless. Therefore, analyzing the team's game, the level of training of the players, their potential, the level of tactical thinking or individual skill, etc., is devoid, in my opinion, of any meaning. Football players and coaches were in frankly non-working conditions when it comes to competitions at the national football association national team level. The consequences of such practices of the UAF and the Committee of National Teams will sooner or later begin to be reflected at the U-21 and "A" team results levels. Does this confuse the management and leadership of the UAF and the National Teams Committee? The question is surprisingly rhetorical," Chorno-Ivanov wrote in his Telegram channel Know-Nothing in the football.
