Famous Ukrainian coach Yuriy Vernidub commented on the national team’s squad for the World Cup 2026 qualifying matches against France and Azerbaijan.
Yuriy Vernidub— There is a head coach, he is responsible for the result, he has to choose whom to call up, because first of all he is responsible for the result.
I just watch the matches, make some conclusions for myself. He definitely analyzes, watches a lot of games, looks at the players, makes this difficult decision. I know it’s tough not to call someone up. I think they consider everything, analyze, communicate with the players before calling them up.
I believe that today what they called up are all the players we really have. Just look at the championship, everyone talks about whom to call up for the "youth team", whom for the first team.
I understand that every club wants as many of their players to be called up as possible, but let’s look at how the Ukrainian championship looks right now. It’s one thing when I worked and devoted more time to it, and now when you watch round by round, we are in the position we are in.
If we can’t win against the Cypriots, Andorrans, then we have some problems. The first problem is our life right now in Ukraine; not everything is so simple, but we need patience, we need to work.
As for Mykhavko, I can say he is a great player for his age, deserving of a call-up, but every coach still wants a more experienced player who has a background, — said Yuriy Mykolayovych.
