Football fans are in luck. The year 2024 presented them with two football events - Euro-2024, the matches of which will be held from 14 June to 14 July in the stadiums of 10 cities in Germany, the second time hosting football Euros, and the football tournament of the Olympic Games, which will be hosted by France for the third time in history. The Ukrainian national team will play at the Olympics for the first time - this right it received as a result of the performance of our team at the European Championship-2023 among youth teams. It was also the venue for the football tournament of the 2024 Games.
In their group our guys defeated Croatia (2:0), Romania (1:0) and played a draw with Spain (2:2), which levelled the score in the last minute. Both teams scored seven points each, but the goal difference was better for the Spaniards - 6:2, and for us - 5:2.
In the quarter-finals of Euro-2023 our team faced one of the favourites - France. Already in the 19th minute the opponent hit Trubin's goal, but then three goals were in the French net - 3:1. Sudakov (twice) and Bondarenko scored. It was the best match of our youth team at the championship. Victory in it took Ruslan Rotan's wards to the semi-finals. Our guys got the right to play at the Olympic tournament for the first time in the history of Ukrainian football.
In the semi-finals our national team, having spent a lot of energy in the match with the French, three days later lost to the familiar group tournament peers from the Spanish national team - 1:5. The Spaniards in the final lost to England - 0:1. The most productive in the national team of Ukraine was Sudakov (3 goals), on account of Bondarenko - 2 goals.
FIFA officially considers the first Olympic champion to be the British team, which won the tournament of the Second Games of 1900 in Paris. There were only three teams participating in it - Belgium, Great Britain and France. Having defeated the French 4-0 in the decisive match, the British became the winners.
Olympic football tournaments were held at all Games, except for 1932 in Los Angeles. The meeting between the teams of Denmark and Greece at the I Olympic Games in 1896, held in Athens, has not entered the history of the Olympics - apparently because there were only two teams in the tournament. The Danes defeated the Greeks 9:0. The Danish team was also successful at subsequent Olympics - three times it was silver medallist and once bronze medallist.
Games VIII Olympics in 1924 for the second time held in Paris. The Uruguayan team won, defeating the Swiss team in the final - 2:1.
The debut of the former USSR national team in Olympic football tournaments took place at the XV Olympic Games in Helsinki. In different years Dynamo players of different generations played in qualifying games of the final tournaments.
XVII Olympiad. 1964. Tokyo. Andriy Biba, Valery Lobanovsky, Viktor Serebryanikov took part in the qualifying matches.
XIX Olympiad. 1968. Mexico City. Yozhef Sabo, Anatoly Byshovets, Valentin Levchenko took part in the qualifying games.
XX Olympiad. 1972. Munich. Yevgeny Rudakov, Oleg Blokhin, Viktor Kolotov, Vyacheslav Semyonov - bronze medallists.
XXI Olympiad. 1976. Montreal. Vladimir Troshkin, Stefan Reshko, Viktor Matvienko, Mikhail Fomenko, Leonid Buryak, Viktor Kolotov, Vladimir Onishchenko, Oleg Blokhin, Anatoly Konkov, Vladimir Veremeev returned to Kiev as bronze medallists. In the match for third place, the national team, managed by Valeriy Lobanovskiy, defeated the Olympians of Brazil - 2:0.
XXII Olympiad. 1980. Moscow. Having defeated Yugoslavia 2:0 in the match for third place, the bronze medallists were Vladimir Bessonov and Sergey Baltacha of Dynamo Kyiv.
XXIV Olympics. Seoul. 1988. The team led by Anatoly Byshovets, a graduate and then a coach of the Dynamo football school, an excellent Dynamo striker and former Kyivan, defeated the Brazilian national team in the final - 2:1. One of the best players in the team of champions was Byshovets' former mentee in the Dynamo school group Alexey Mikhailichenko. He is the only Olympic champion in Ukrainian football so far.
We wish the Ukrainian Olympic team, the debutant of the Olympic football tournament, a victorious game in France. And let Ruslan Rotan's charges smile with luck.
Oleksandr LIPENKO for Dynamo.kiev.ua