Famous journalist Igor Linnyk commented on the Ukrainian youth team reaching the semi-finals of Euro 2023 (U-21).
Igor Linnik"I think that since the time of Valeriy Lobanovskiy and until recently Ukraine has not managed to create a team that would be entitled to claim the status of a trendsetter in world football. And now we have such a team again!
The youth team put together by Ruslan Rotan and his staff is one of them. The structure of the game displayed by its players can truly claim exemplary status.
Nobody talk about perfect execution of the plan, but the vision of the collective action and the way it is implemented, all this is certainly very close to the best examples of modern football.
And, as the matches in the final tournament of the European Youth Championship showed, the team retains the structure proposed by the coaching staff in any combination of players! This indicates that each of them knows not only their individual tasks, but also understands the whole picture of action. Hence, there is excellent mutual protection and seemingly easy interchangeability.
The match against the French was exceptional in this respect! As my father rightly said, there are few matches like that in life. Each of us must have experienced something like that ourselves yesterday - after all, something close to perfection usually looks like that. It manifests itself in many ways.
Does this mean that Rotan's side will certainly win the tournament? Anything can happen in football... Lobanovskiy did not always win them all either. But now we will hope to win not as a coincidence of favourable circumstances, but as a manifestation of a consistent pattern. And the fact that our team's opponents are just as well-staffed and well-prepared.
P.S. Staffing is a topic for a separate discussion. After all, not everything has turned out so brilliantly for the same Roslan Rotan. And it is clear why. For such a complex structure of the game players must be carefully selected, not everyone can adjust to it, let alone develop it creatively!
