2022: results of the year for U-17 youth team of Ukraine

17.12.2022 15:25

Photo of UAF press service

Yury Moroz was appointed head coach of the youth national team of Ukraine, which started in October in the selection for Euro-2023 (U-17). He already had a lot of experience working with talented Ukrainian youth, so even in difficult conditions he managed to assemble and qualitatively prepare a team of football players born in 2006 for the first stage of qualification.

Even before the start of a full-scale war with the aggressor, there were many more meetings in the calendar of this national team. It was supposed to meet for the first time in April 2022 — to prepare for the UEFA Development Tournament in Estonia. And at the end of August, the UAF planned to hold the traditional Victor Bannikov Memorial, but it did not take place - only the fourth time since 2002. The first two omissions were due to the Russian threat in 2014-2015, the third - for 2020 (pandemic and quarantine), and now - again "thanks" to the eastern neighbor.

Therefore, Moroz and his coaching staff were forced to prepare for the matches with the national teams of Azerbaijan, Liechtenstein and Bosnia and Herzegovina (the regulations take the first two teams of each group and the four best winners of the third places to the next round) due to internal NTZ and sparring with rivals from the UPL.

Players from six clubs were called to the first training session in September: "Zori" (13), "Metalista" (5), "Dnipro-1" (4), "Rukha" (3), "Shakhtar" (2) and "Kolos" » (1). Moroz's wards lost the meeting with "Alexandria" - 0:4, and then defeated "Kolos" U-19 - 3:1. The goals were scored by Maksym Koval, Kyrylo Osypenko and Vladyslav Kalyn, who had not yet converted a penalty.

And right before the Euro-2023 qualifying matches, the U-17 youth national team defeated Lviv U-19 with a score of 5:0. Kalin, Koval and Osypenko scored again, and besides them, Viktor Tsukanov and Vitaly Lobko.

Therefore, it is not surprising that even at the national team level, Ukrainian talents continued to confidently win. And after two game days, they already guaranteed themselves one of the two passes to the elite round of qualification.

All matches of the youth national team of Ukraine U-17 2022

It may seem very strange to some that there is not a single Dynamo Kyiv player in the Ukrainian U-17 national team. But those who follow youth football more or less closely know that the "Dynamo" team born in 2006, under the leadership of its coach Oleksiy Drotsenko, competes in the Ukrainian U-19 championship with... "Zorya". And, despite their young age (the average score is even less than 17 years old — 16,7), Dynamo students went to the winter break in eighth place in the tournament table.

Before the war, Shakhtar, Metalist and Dnipro-1 teams looked interesting. But after February 2022, they lost many talents who decided to try their hand at foreign clubs. One of them is central defender Artur Bakai from Shakhtar (Kharkiv football graduate), who played on the right wing in the national team at the first stage of qualification, already representing the Austrian Red Bull Salzburg.

All football players of the youth national team of Ukraine U-17 2022