The Ukrainian national team managed to qualify for Euro 2024. For the fourth time in a row, we will play at the European Championships.
In fact, reaching the finals of the European Championship is just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, in less than a year of work, head coach Serhii Rebrov and his staff have done a lot.
Sergey RebrovThe national team did not bend over backwards. In the group, we failed to get ahead of England and Italy. Although formally, in home matches we were competitive against some of the strongest teams of today. With all due respect to the teams of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Iceland, Ukraine is stronger. Stronger in all respects. We have a stronger player in every position, we have a deeper squad, a stronger coach. We have legionnaires from Chelsea, Real Madrid, Girona, Arsenal, Benfica. 4 representatives of the UPL. The population of the countries, the level of the championship, football traditions in Ukraine are much higher than in Iceland and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Rebrov has done his job.
The change of generations. Usually, this process has a very serious impact on the result. The health problems of Andrii Yarmolenko and Taras Stepanenko did not become a problem for the national team. Young players started playing in their place. Everything is going to go to the point where in the summer Andriy and Taras will announce the end of their careers in the national team to play at the club level for some time. At such a respectable football age, it is very important to set priorities. The importance of Serhii Sydorchuk, Oleksandr Karavayev and Ruslan Malinovskyi for the national team is also not great now.
The core of the team has been formed. Lunin-Trubin, Zabarnyi, Mykolenko, Brazhko, Sudakov, Zinchenko, Mudryk, Tsygankov, Dovbyk - all of them can still progress and improve their level. The age of these players allows them to play in at least 2-3 more qualifying cycles. A certain personnel backbone has been formed and played, which just needs to be supplemented with a few players depending on the opponent.
System. The general principles of the functioning of the entire national team institution. We can see that Volodymyr Brazhko has made an almost painless transition from the youth team to the national team. Of course, club work and successes come first. But the contribution of Unai Melhosa should not be forgotten. Several players from the current generation of the youth team can follow Brazhko - Vitalii Roman, Arsen Batahov, Kostiantyn Vivcharenko, Ilya Kvasnytsia, Oleh Ocheretko, Oleksandr Yatsyk, Bohdan Slyubyk. The greatest prospect is Yegor Yarmolyuk, who already has one foot in the national team. I am very impressed with Polissia's centre-back Borys Krushynskyi. Working with Melhosa should help him in terms of progress.
The success of the youth and youth teams. Serhii Stanislavovych is responsible for the entire vertical of the Ukrainian national teams. The national team reached the Euros. The youth team won six out of six matches in the qualifiers. The U-17 and U-19 national teams reached the European Championships of their age categories by confidently winning their groups in the elite round. The level of the national team and the youth team was already high. But the youth teams were stalling a bit. We did not qualify. From time to time, scandals broke out around the youth teams. This is not the case now.
Serhii Tyshchenko
