The Ukrainian national team, as in the WC-2022 cycle, will start the qualification for the 2026 World Cup with a match against the team of France.
In its seven previous attempts to qualify for the World Cup, the Ukrainian national team has succeeded only once – under the leadership of Oleg Blokhin. Upon taking charge of the national team, he made a bold statement about reaching the final tournament from the first place in the group. And despite the skeptics, he fulfilled his promise, leading the team to the quarter-finals in Germany, where they were defeated only by the future champions from Italy.
Blokhin made that statement in response to a question that reminded him of the Ukrainians’ failures in the qualifying playoffs. It happened in 1997 when we did not go to the World Cup in France due to Croatia, in 1999 (Slovenia kept us out of the Euros), and in 2001 (Germany ignored the motto "Our goal is 2002").
Overall, in the World Cup qualifiers, Ukraine has not dropped below second place in six out of seven cycles. We qualified from the first place in WC-2006, and in five cases, we lost at the playoff stage (besides the aforementioned episodes, in 2009 we lost to Greece, in 2013 to France, and in 2022 to Wales).
The Ukrainian national team in World Cup qualifiers
