Ukraine's youth national team (players not older than 2008) successfully performed in Belgium in the qualifying round of Euro 2025 (U-17). Yuriy Moroz's wards won a ticket to the next stage of selection, taking second place in their group.
Blue-and-yellow striker Dmytro Zudin, who scored three goals, and defender Yegor Onishchuk shared their impressions of the competition with the UAF official website.
"Yes, I'm pleased to score, but the most important thing is to benefit the team," Zudin said. "Personal achievements fade into the background, the Ukrainian national team has fulfilled its task - it has made it to the next round of the competition, and this is the main thing. It is a pity that we failed to achieve the desired result in the match against Belgium and take first place in the group. The natural outcome of this confrontation should have been a draw, as evidenced by the statistics of the match. At the end of the game, we probably lacked concentration a little bit and did not block the opponent's decisive shot. But that's history, we need to draw conclusions and move on.
What were your feelings in the debut of the first match with Kosovo? Shock. But I think we quickly came to our senses. I managed to score, and maybe this goal helped us gain confidence, the team realized that they could make a comeback.
After the tournament, the head coach congratulated the team on their accomplishment and asked them not to stop there. In three weeks, we will start training in Croatia, during which we will play two sparring matches with the local team. We need to prepare well for the elite qualifying round, because we really want to get to the final part of the European Championship."
"We are pleased that the Ukrainian national team managed to solve the main task in the qualification in advance - to reach the next round of the Euro qualifiers," said Onishchuk. "After the second match, against Kazakhstan, we were overwhelmed with emotions, you don't achieve such a result every day. Nevertheless, there is also a slight residue that we failed to win the group, losing in the last match to Belgium. We were preparing for this game in the most serious way, but a second loss of concentration led to a missed goal. Although physically we were not inferior, and at times even outperformed our opponent. Maybe we will meet the Belgians again and try to take revenge.
I was lucky enough to play in all the matches without substitutions, for which I can only thank the head coach who believed in me. I wanted to show all my best qualities. I hope I have benefited the team."