The productive forward in the past, and later a well-known coach Ihor Yavorsky shared his impressions about the performance of the youth national team of Ukraine at the Under-21 European Championship in Slovakia.
“The very first match of the final part against the Danes demonstrated that the players under Unai Melgosa have problems with game discipline and attitude. It is not surprising that at the crucial moment—in the confrontation with the Dutch, which determined the fate of the second ticket to the quarterfinals, our boys disappointed.
It seemed that there was no clear plan for the game. The Ukrainians were in a more advantageous position, but often did not know how to act: to focus on defense to avoid conceding or to be geared towards attack. It is no wonder that the imitation of the same pressing, where 2-3 players met the opponent near their penalty area, brought no dividends. The Dutch easily broke through such pressing with accurate passes and individual skill, finding already free space on our half of the field, and we had to defend.
Secondly, there was an element of overconfidence, the boys were sure that they would somehow achieve the desired result, even though they did not rely on execution skill, but rather on a lucky coincidence.
In my opinion, our team had been clearly overpraised even after the qualifying competitions. Some even believed that soon a whole group of ‘youth team’ players would claim leading roles in the national team. However, the matches with the Danes and especially yesterday’s one proved that the players under Unai Melgosa still have very little skill. Just recall how often they made mistakes in the match against the Dutch.
Yes, some of them play for mediocre foreign clubs, others represent the UPL. But this is not an indicator, considering the very low level of the domestic elite division. That is why no miracle happened yesterday. The Dutch were stronger by all indicators and deservedly earned a slot in the quarterfinals, forcing the Ukrainians to pack their bags and return home.
Unfortunately, our “golden generation” from the youth team in Slovakia turned out to be strangers at the continental football festival. By the way, as for me, anyone who gave such a characterization to our team can’t be denied wit. A true joker.”