Renowned journalist Mykola Nesenyuk commented on Ukraine's entry into Euro 2024 and assessed its prospects at the tournament.
Nikolay Nesenyuk"It was in the early 2000s. In one of the companies, I found myself working next to an Italian. What could we talk about in my broken English? Of course, about football! The final tournament of the 2006 World Cup, where Italy and Ukraine were to play, was about to start in a month. When I asked what the Italians expected from their national team, my interlocutor did not understand the question at first. When he did, he explained that Italy expects its players to win the world title. There are no other options. If the Italians do not become champions, they will be mercilessly criticised, and the national team coach will almost certainly be fired. He knew nothing about the Ukrainian national team, except that Chevchenko played for it.
That conversation only confirmed what I already knew - all Italians, without exception, love football and believe that theirs is the best football in the world. Therefore, the Italian team should be the world and European champion. Period. That's what they thought in the old days, when we didn't exist, that's what they think now, and that's what they'll think when we're gone. The same can be said about the British, the Spanish, the French, the Germans. Because they are not just football nations, but nations of champions! Even when they are not really champions.
And what about us? What was I supposed to say to that Italian? That we somehow consider ourselves weaklings in advance, who would be lucky to at least make it to the finals of the world or European championships? That the players of our national team are declared superheroes after any win, and all defeats are attributed to "evil referees"? I said nothing. And I was right - in two months Italy became the world champion, easily beating Ukraine 3-0 in the quarter-finals. However, we celebrated that quarter-final loss almost as much as Italy celebrated the world title.
What has changed since then in almost twenty years? Italy, the reigning European champion, was expected to be ahead of Ukraine in the qualifiers, while we traditionally moan about the "bad referee" who, as always, stood in our way. As for me, this is a road to nowhere. After all, what makes us worse than those Italians? Nothing - this will be confirmed by hundreds of thousands of our emigrants in Italy, whose children are already applying to play for the Italian national teams, still youth teams. They also aspire to become world and European champions and, quite possibly, will become them someday as Italians. And not because they are super talented, but because those who play for Italy always set themselves the highest goals. Why are we not like that?
I am convinced that the secret of success is not only in the legs, but also in the minds of the players. Strive for the impossible and you will get the maximum, right? Why don't we strive to become European football champions? It's not a fantasy - it's real. Because national team competitions are not the Champions League, where rich clubs can bring dozens of players from all over the world. Everything is fair here - only your own players play. You can, of course, naturalise one or two foreigners, but it doesn't solve anything, as Marlos has proven. You might say that in Italy or Spain, these "own" players are better than ours. Why? Because they have been striving to become world champions since childhood. And no less! What do they teach our players? What do they aim for? That's it!
The conclusion from all this is that I believe that Ukraine will become the European champion! If not now, then later. The main thing is to strive for this, not just to get to the tournament with 24 teams. If we set the task in this way, then the win in Iceland should not be the "match of the century" for us, but just another step towards the European top. There are seven more to go!" Neseniuk wrote on his Facebook page.
