Oleg Kuznetsov: “We will heat the lineup for the Euro qualification match”

08.10.2019 12:00

Photo by Alexander Prikhodko

The head coach of the youth U-19 national team of Ukraine Oleh Kuznetsov believes that the Greek national team is a worthy opponent to prepare for official matches.

Today the youth team of Ukraine (players not older than 2001 year of birth) will hold the first of two scheduled friendly matches with Greece. And the day before, the head coach of the blue and yellow Oleg Kuznetsov answered questions from the official website of the UAF.

- Oleg Vladimirovich, is it possible to talk about quality training, if not all the strongest players are at your disposal?

- It does not add much optimism on the eve of official matches. And what will you do? We have been going through these situations for a year and a half. Anyway, I don't see anything wrong with that. I think for other players who came to the training camp, it will be an incentive to prove themselves. We have analyzed the situation and we hope that we have an alternative to the place of the Dynamo guys.

- What will be the main goals of the current training camp for the coaching staff and players?

- Probably no one will guarantee that all the best will be invited to the Euro qualifiers, so we will try to give confidence to the guys who are currently at the meeting. And we will play the lineup for official matches.

- Is Greece a worthy opponent for the last rehearsal on the eve of the qualifying matches of the European Championship?

- Absolutely. It is clear that Spain or France are unlikely to come to us. However, thanks to UAF, we have the opportunity to meet a worthy opponent. In matches with the Greeks, it will be possible to test your strengths and see the flaws that we will try to eliminate before the official competition.

- You invited the striker of the German "Nuremberg" Eric Shuranov, who was called up to the U-18 team ...

- We try to cover as many guys as possible. For example, Danilo Sikan last visited us, if I'm not mistaken, in March last year. Now he is not on the list of the youth team, so at the last moment we called this player. I talked to Shuranov, and he wants to help our team. It used to be that we had problems with the attackers, and now we have Girny from the Carpathians. So, we have to have a good choice of performers.

Recall that this team is preparing for the qualifying matches of the Europe 2020 (U-19), which will pass November 13, 16 and 19 this year. The rivals of the Ukrainians in the fight for tickets to the elite round of the competition will be the national teams of Sweden, Slovenia and Estonia.