Today, on 7 September, the tournament in the new cycle for the Ukrainian youth team - the Euro 2025 (U-21) qualification - has started. In Group F, the teams of England, Ukraine, Serbia, Northern Ireland, Azerbaijan and Luxembourg will compete for tickets to the final stage of the competition.
Photo: uaf.uaThe tournament in our sextet was opened by the Northern Ireland-Luxembourg match, in which the guests unexpectedly won 1-0. The Ukrainian youth team (players born in 2002 and younger), led by the Spaniard Unai Melgosa, will start the qualifiers with the British. This game will take place on 12 September in Slovakia, on the field of the Poprad National Training Centre (starting at 19.30 Kyiv time).
And in preparation for the start of the Euro 2025 (U-21) qualifiers, the blue and yellows will play a sparring match with the German youth team. The match will take place on 8 September at the Ludwigsparkstadion in Saarbrücken (starting at 19.15 Kyiv time). The friendly will be broadcast live on the UAF YouTube channel.
On the eve of the match in Germany, the head coach of the youth national team of Ukraine Unai Melgosa answered questions from the UAF press service.
- Unai, please tell us, how were the first days of work in preparation for the matches with Germany and Northern Ireland? Did you combine training with theory?
- On Monday, the team crossed the borders, there was a lot of logistics involved. The players arrived later than we planned, so we started training on Tuesday.
I would like to note that the players arrived with a positive attitude and a thirst for work. They understand that they have been called up to the youth team.
As for the preparation, we started from the basic ideas, and then, step by step, through our game model, moved on to more specific aspects.
In addition, we held theoretical sessions on group and individual aspects. The idea is to create a link between what we want from the players and our game model.
- In the match against the Germans, do you expect the optimal line-up or do you plan to test positions and experiment? What tasks will you set in sparring?
- These 10 days of training are a single process. We don't want to cut anything out of it just because we have a friendly, but of course we want to play as well as possible. We want to see the players, give them playing time, see how they understand our game idea.
We hope to have a good match against Germany. During our process, we will also prepare for Northern Ireland.
- You must have studied your future rivals? What can you say about the youth national teams of Germany and Northern Ireland?
- Germany is a very good team with many individuals. There is a high intensity in the press. In attack, they play more positional, trying to keep the ball. They have a lot of athletic players who are also very well equipped technically. We expect a worthy opponent.
The Northern Ireland youth team has changed their head coach, so we don't have much information about them. After their opening match against Luxembourg, I hope we will be able to get more information.
In general, this team is different from the German youth team, the players are physically stronger, so we need to adapt to this.
- In the Euro 2025 qualifiers, of course, we set a goal to make it to the final tournament. Can we say that England, Ukraine and Serbia will fight for the first two places?
- Ukraine has set itself different goals. One goal is to qualify for Euro 2025. Another goal, the development of players, is very, very important.
I can't say who is the favourite in our group. In my life, I have seen many teams about which I could say that they are not good enough, but here the generations change every year. One year you may have a very good generation, the next year it may be worse or even better.
We will move step by step. We want to improve during every training camp and play better and better in every match.
