Yuriy Klymenko: "The Euroleague became an incentive for us to a remarkable victory in the World Champions Cup"

06.10.2023 15:04

Photo by beachsoccer.com

The head coach of the women's beach soccer team of Ukraine and the "Dream-2006" team Yuriy Klymenko commented on the performances of his wards at two prestigious tournaments in Italy. 

From September 21 to 24, the women's beach soccer team of Ukraine took part in the Euroleague 2023 Super Final in the Italian town of Alghero. According to the results of the Ukrainian women's competition settled down in the sixth position, having conceded in the match for the 5th and 6th places to the home team (2:6).  

After that, there, in Alghero, the draw for the Women's Club World Champions Cup-2023 took place, in which the Ukrainian "Mriya-2006" stood out. Our team is sensational became the winner prestigious tournament, defeating Brazilian Sao Pedro (5:3) in the final.

The results of the performances of the women's national team and "Dreams-2006" at the tournaments in Italy were summed up by the head coach of both teams, Yuriy Klymenko. 

"Recently, the fans expect only victories and the best results from the women's national team. However, we didn't play very well in Alghero in the Euroleague and, in my opinion, the bad performance of the team is related to the fact that we did not have enough time to prepare. The championship of Ukraine was not held, and the girls did not go out on the sand for 80 days. This is a very long pause. Due to the troubles of the Indonesian organizers, we did not go to the World Beach Games this year. 

As I said, because of this the girls signed contracts with futsal clubs and major football clubs, some did not train at all. It was very difficult to collect them, to remind them of what we recorded earlier. We didn't do any training together in Kyiv. And those one and a half classes that we organized in Italy, of course, could not immediately give results.

Although if we had not made gross mistakes in the first match against the Netherlands, and used our moments against Portugal, we could have reached the semi-finals under a certain coincidence of circumstances. The Czech Republic would be waiting for us there, and we had to go to Spain in the final. But it didn't happen like that. You have to prepare carefully for any business. Too much if we set maximum tasks for the team. That's why it turned out as it did, but the Euroleague became an incentive for us to this remarkable victory in the World Champions Cup.

After all, it was in the draw of the Euroleague that we established game connections, remembered our previous tactical ideas. In addition, they took two girls from Poland, very well trained. We carefully prepared for each match, analyzed the opponent tactically, because at this tournament we had completely different opponents in terms of playing style, we had to change our tactics accordingly, communicate a lot with the girls. Well, they rallied psychologically, approached these competitions with more confidence. And they won. 

Of course, on the way to victory, the last, final match is the most memorable. In it, we prepared the girls for a confrontation with the leaders of the Brazilian women, and they worked out to the fullest. However, every meeting in the Champions Cup was difficult. For example, in the first match, it was very difficult with the Dutch women, who were reinforced by three Spaniards. They won - 2:1, but literally endured until the end of the confrontation. The next match, with an equally strong Salvadoran team, we already played very well, and then we had a meeting with the Japanese Lazo Apego.

In general, I considered the Japanese women to be the favorites of the tournament. They have a very well-planned game, which the goalkeeper of the team leads brilliantly. And their leader, Saki Kushiyama, is one of the best players in the world. She is very powerful, and also hits through herself with both legs. But we managed to shut her down, play closer to the goalkeeper, and prevent the Japanese women from carefully preparing their attacks. The girls managed, including due to frequent substitutions. Having 10 strong performers in our team, we were able to impose our tempo on our opponents and thanks to this we won the match. Well, in the final, our car was unstoppable.

Finally, I want to thank our armed forces for the fact that we were able to spend two weeks abroad and represent Ukraine decently at the national and club level. I also want to thank everyone who was involved in this important victory in our time. The girls should be commended for their dedication and determination in the most important matches of the tournament. We would like to express our respect to our fans for always supporting us, and we feel their sincere support. Once again, many thanks to everyone! Glory to Ukraine!! As for our future plans, there is a pause for now. We will rest," said Yuriy Klymenko.