Results of 2023 for the youth national team of Ukraine U-18/19

Ukraine's youth national team, led by Oleh Kuznetsov, missed the first half of 2023 entirely and only gathered for the first time in October.

Photo: uaf.ua

On the eve of the start of the Euro 2024 U-19 qualifiers, the team took part in an international tournament in South Korea - the Seoul Cup, where they tested their capabilities against exotic (for a European team) rivals - South Korea, Vietnam and Morocco. The games turned out to be surprisingly productive, with our boys winning two of them.

And in November, Ukrainian footballers born in 2005 began their journey to the final tournament of Euro 2024 U-19. And they made us nervous, suffering a crushing defeat in the second round from the Kosovars - 0: 4. However, for the final match against the Slovaks, Oleg Kuznetsov's team pulled together and won with a convincing 4-0 result.

In the elite qualifying round, which will take place at the end of March 2024, the rivals of the Ukrainian U-19 national team will be Switzerland, North Macedonia and Latvia. The winners of the groups will advance to the final stage of the Euro.

All matches of the youth national team of Ukraine U-18/19 in 2023

The national team, made up of players born in 2005, has played only 16 matches in three years (2021-2023). Over the three-year period, a group of performers has already formed who have played for the team throughout this time - a kind of backbone of Oleg Kuznetsov.

It consists of 14 players: goalkeepers Vladyslav Kravets (8 matches) and David Fesyuk (6), defenders Nazar Balaba (11), Danylo Bilokon (8), Oleksiy Gusev (15), and Stepan Lysenko (10), Mykola Ogarkov (8) and Yegor Syzonyuk (12), midfielders Maksym Vasilets (8), Maksym Derkach (15), Dmytro Kremchanin (16), Yevhen Mykytyuk (9) and Nazar Yanchyshyn (11), and striker Mykyta Zen (11).

But in 2023, we also saw 11 debutants of the national team born in 2005. These are defenders Ivan Yermachkov, Maksym Melnychenko, Taras Mikhavko, midfielders Danylo Vashchenko, Dmytro Hodia, Bohdan Manuilov, Vitalii Mykhailiv, Roman Salenko, Diyar Shamuzov, and strikers Oleksandr Pyshchur and Timur Tuterov. Five of them are legionnaires.

Three younger players also made their debuts in this team, all three of them from Dynamo, but only the top scorer of the current U-19 Ukrainian Championship, Matvii Ponomarenko, won a place in the starting line-up after winning the competition.

All players of the youth national team of Ukraine U-18/19 2023