Midfielder of "Shakhtar" Oleh Ocheretko shared his emotions about being called up to the national team of Ukraine.
“It has been a week since I received a call-up to the national team of Ukraine, and there hasn’t been a day without someone congratulating me. Every journalist asked: "How did it go for you?" At first, I was nervous, but now I am calmer. I was told I would be called up, but I didn’t fully believe it until the end. But when even my wife said in the car that I had been called up, it felt nice to my soul.
My older colleagues from "Shakhtar" haven’t given me advice yet and haven’t pushed me in any way. They said to come. Recently, I experienced an injury, and during some time I trained separately from the main team, not as intensively as in the general group, but now everything is fine.
My task for this training camp is to help the team to demonstrate good play and win. So far, I don’t have a 100% feeling that I am already a player of the national team. I need to work hard and give my all. Even now, subconsciously, I still don’t fully believe that I am on the national team bus. Perhaps this feeling will pass in the first training session.
These are my first training camps with the national team, and I think it will be difficult with France and Azerbaijan. I want to see what the atmosphere is like in such matches. I would like to play against both of these opponents. If I had the choice, I would choose the number 27 for myself, just like in "Shakhtar," — said Ocheretko.
