Last Sunday, the first group of the national team of Ukraine arrived in Prague and began preparations for the Euro 2024 qualifying match against Northern Macedonia, which will take place in this city on Saturday, 14 October
Training camps in Europe for the Ukrainian national team always involve special and challenging logistics, with all the complexities having to be resolved by the managers of the national team. This time, the largest group of 22 members of the Ukrainian delegation, including five Dynamo Kyiv players, administrative and medical staff, travelled by the traditional route: by train from Kyiv to Przemysl and then by bus to the airport in Rzeszów, from where it is possible to fly to virtually any place in the Old World with an airport. It was the same this time: according to the calculations carefully kept by Heorhii Bushchan, the journey from the Kyiv railway station to the NH Prague City Hotel in Prague took 18 hours and 45 minutes - a standard figure for the national team's current voyages.
At the airport, the team met with assistant coach Vicente Gomez, as well as the Pitmen's Mykola Matvienko and Oleksandr Zubkov, and at the hotel, the national team manager Serhiy Rebrov, one of his assistants Hlib Platov and Georgiy Sudakov, who left for Prague immediately after Shakhtar's Champions League victory over Antwerp, were already waiting for the boys. Anatolii Trubin and Rustam Khudzhamov arrived from Lisbon for lunch, followed by Taras Stepanenko, Serhii Sydorchuk and coach Alberto Bosch an hour later.
A total of 12 players took part in the evening training session on Sunday at the Sparta football club: Georgy Bushchan, Anatoly Trubin, Vitaly Buyalsky, Alexander Karavayev, Vladislav Vanat, Nikolai Matvienko, Georgy Sudakov, Yegor Nazarina, Yukhim Konoplya, Taras Stepanenko, Alexander Zubkov and Sergey Sidorchuk.
Denys Popov is currently working out in the gym, continuing his recovery from a thigh muscle injury. It is hoped that the defender will recover in time for at least one of the national team's October matches.
Meanwhile, the boys, who trained today on one of the fields of the Sparta base, jogged and then were divided into two groups. Kyiv Dynamo and Serhiy Sydorchuk, who played on Friday and Saturday respectively, had a stretching session, while the Miners, whose match took place on Wednesday, performed football technique exercises, game drills and tasks to complete the attack quickly.
The place where Sparta's training grounds are located, which will be the blue and yellows' home base this week, deserves a separate story. The Strahov Stadium was built almost a hundred years ago - in 1926, on a gigantic area of 63,000 square metres, and at that time it could accommodate as many as 220,000 (!!!) spectators. Initially, the Sokil Youth and Sports Society held thousands of gatherings on this territory. Later, in the days of socialism, sports days were held here with the participation of tens of thousands of young boys and girls who performed choreographic performances on this huge square, and in our time, crowded concerts of world-famous rock bands such as the Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, U2, Guns N' Roses, etc. took place here.
At the beginning of the 21st century, with the financial assistance of the city administration, the Sparta football club carried out a reconstruction, as a result of which the field was divided into seven standard-sized football fields, including those with artificial turf, as well as a mini-football field.
It is on one of the natural pitches that the national team will train almost in full strength from tomorrow. Yesterday, Roman Yaremchuk, Ruslan Malinowski, Vitaliy Mykolenko and Nazariy Rusyn joined the team in the evening. After dinner, Artem Dovbyk, Mykhailo Mudryk and Ilya Zabarnyi will arrive at the Blue and Yellows' location.
Today, the players whose clubs played yesterday - Oleksandr Zinchenko and Bohdan Mykhailichenko - as well as Oleksandr Svatok, Oleksandr Pikhalenok, and our "American" Serhii Kryvtsov, whose journey from North America usually takes a little time, will arrive in Prague. The last to join the group will be goalkeeper Dmytro Riznyk, who was called up today to replace the injured Andriy Lunin: Dmytro will arrive in the blue and yellow camp on Tuesday.
The composition of the national team of Ukraine at the current training camp
Goalkeepers: Georgiy Bushchan (Dynamo), Anatoliy Trubin (Benfica, Portugal), Dmytro Riznyk (Shakhtar).
Defenders: Mykola Matvienko, Yukhym Konoplya (both Shakhtar), Denys Popov, Oleksandr Karavayev (both Dynamo), Oleksandr Svatok (Dnipro-1), Vitalii Mykolenko (Everton, England), Ilya Zabarnyi (Bournemouth, England), Serhii Kryvtsov (Inter Miami, USA), Bohdan Mykhailichenko (Dinamo Z, Croatia).
Midfielders: Vitalii Buyalskyi (Dynamo), Taras Stepanenko, Oleksandr Zubkov, Heorhii Sudakov, Yehor Nazarina (all from Shakhtar), Oleksandr Pikhalonok (Dnipro-1), Oleksandr Zinchenko (Arsenal, England), Mykhailo Mudryk (Chelsea, England), Serhii Sydorchuk (Westerlo, Belgium), Ruslan Malinowski (Genoa, Italy).
Forwards: Roman Yaremchuk (Valencia, Spain), Artem Dovbyk (Girona, Spain), Vladyslav Vanat (Dynamo), Nazariy Rusyn (Sunderland, England).
In reserve: Oleksandr Tymchyk (Dynamo).
Oleksandr Hlyvynskyi, press secretary of the national team of Ukraine
