U-17: Last time did not get to the elite round of selection for Euro Ukraine 10 years ago

24.03.2019 13:20

The start of the U-25 youth national team is scheduled for March 17 elite round selection for the 2019 European Championship. In Switzerland, on a neutral field, team of Vladimir Yezersky will play with Kosovo (actually 25th), Greece (28th) and Spain (31st).

The winner of the group and, most likely, the second team will go to the final tournament (it will take place on May 3-19 in Ireland). It is only necessary not to be in the last place among the eight second teams of all groups of the elite round. According to these regulations, the U-17 national teams have been playing for the fifth year. And before that he changed many times.

As it was before ...

... When the junior national team of Ukraine started in the qualifying tournament for Euro 1994, firstly, it was held as a championship for U-16 teams (although the 17-year-olds already played in the final tournament), and secondly, to enter the the final, which included 16 national teams, it was enough to hold two matches in the selection.

Therefore, Volodymyr Kiyanchenko's footballers, who won bronze at the Euro in 1994, played only two matches in the qualifying tournament (Hungary - 1: 0, Armenia - 9: 0), and in the final - six (three in the group, then the quarterfinals, semifinals). and a match for third place). That was the generation born in 1977.

Then not getting to the final was harder than getting. Ukraine played in Euro-1996 and Euro-1997, however, failed in the selection of Euro-1995. Sometimes the qualifying tournament was held not in one country, but on the road - at home and away. Then I had to play not two but four matches. This was the case with the Ukrainian team for two years in a row - in the Euro-1998 and Euro-1999 cycles, when the national team was coached by Anatoliy Buznik.

The European Championship has officially moved into the U-17 age category since the 2002 cycle. And in 2003, only eight national teams played in the final - twice less than before. At the same time, as in the U-19 championships, there was a need to conduct the second stage of selection - the elite round.

Ukraine's first attempt to get into it, as in the senior category, was unsuccessful - the boys born in 1986 under the leadership of Valentin Lutsenko scored only two points and took last, fourth place. After that, the blue and yellows did not get to the elite round only twice - in the cycles of Euro-2008 (team of Anatoly Buznik) and Euro-2009 (team of Alexander Golovko). In the first case, players born in 1991 in the first stage of selection scored only one point (fourth place in the group), in the second player born in 1992 - four (third place in the group).

And since 2015, the number of finalists has again returned to 16, while maintaining two stages of selection. But now it is easier to make it to the U-17 European Championships. It was even easier to get into the elite round, and not only the winners of the seven groups, as before, but the winners of the eight groups plus the best seven teams, which took second place, reached the finals after the next reform.

However, this is where the debut was unsuccessful for Ukraine. The team of Vladimir Tsitkin after three draws in the first stage suffered three defeats in the elite round (from Italy, Germany and Slovakia). This is the worst performance of the Ukrainians in this segment of the tournament distance.

But there were also successful seasons. For example, Yuri Kalitvintsev's team in the elite round of Euro 2007 won three matches out of three (Slovakia - 2: 0, Czech Republic - 5: 2, Italy - 1: 0). Earlier, in the Euro-2004 cycle, Viktor Kashchei's team defeated Denmark and Germany 2-0 (both times Oleksandr Gladkyi scored a double). Oleksandr Holovko's boys also managed to beat a very strong Germany in 2013 - thanks to Andriy Boryachuk's only goal.

Oleksandr Petrakov's players received a pass to the final stage of Euro 2016 ahead of schedule, and one of the players of this team - Oleksiy Kashchuk - became a real hero of the elite round next year. His double against Austria (2: 1) in the last round made Serhiy Popov's wards finalists of Euro-2017.

By the way, this team managed to win the first victory for Ukraine in the final tournament of Euro U-17 since 1998. But the only real achievement of our 17-year-old boys is the bronze of the 1994 model, won at our debut tournament for younger boys. At all other European championships, our team did not leave the group in the finals and did not make it to the world championships.

Serious hopes were placed on the team of Oleg Kuznetsov in the selection of Euro-2018. She even almost made it to the final tournament after the elite round matches with Spain (1: 1) and Serbia (2: 1). But it turned out that two football players who were to be disqualified (Mykola Yarosh and Roman Bodnya) came on the field with the Serbs. UEFA punished the national team of Ukraine with a technical defeat (0: 3), and in the third round our team drew with the Czech Republic (0: 0) and broke a series of their predecessors, who played in the final tournaments of Euro U-17 in 2016-2017.

U-17 national team in the elite rounds of the European Championships