Euro-2024 selection: the national team of Ukraine arrived in Prague and held the first training session

08.10.2023 22:02

Photo by Pavlo Kubanov

Meetings in Europe for the national team of Ukraine are always special and difficult logistics, all the complexities of which have to be solved by the managers of the country's main team.

This time, the largest group of members of the Ukrainian delegation, consisting of 22 people, among whom there were five people from Kyiv, administrative and medical staff, went on the traditional route: by train from Kyiv to Przemyśl and then by bus to the resort in Rzeszów, from where you can reach by plane virtually any point in the Old World where there is an airport. It was the same this time: according to the calculations carefully conducted by George Bushchan, the journey from the Kyiv train station to the NH Prague City Hotel in Prague took 18 hours and 45 minutes — a standard figure for the current team's journeys.

Photo by Pavlo Kubanov

At the airport, the national team met with assistant head coach Vicente Gomez, as well as miners Mykola Matvienko and Oleksandr Zubkov, and at the hotel, the team manager Serhii Rebrov, one of his assistants Glib Platov and Georgy Sudakov, who left for Prague immediately after the winning match, were already waiting for the boys. "Shakhtar" with "Antwerp" in the Champions League. Anatoliy Trubin and Rustam Khudzhamov arrived from Lisbon for lunch, and Taras Stepanenko, Serhiy Sydorchuk and coach Alberto Bosch arrived an hour after lunch.

Photo by Pavlo Kubanov

12 performers took part in the evening training session held at the Sparta football club: Georgy Bushchan, Anatoly Trubin, Vitaly Buyalskyi, Oleksandr Karavaev, Vladyslav Vanat, Mykola Matvienko, Georgy Sudakov, Yehor Nazarina, Yukhym Konoplia, Taras Stepanenko, Oleksandr Zubkov and Serhii Sydorchuk.

Denys Popov is currently working in the gym, continuing his recovery from a thigh muscle injury. It is hoped that the defender will have time to recover before at least one of the national team's October matches.

Photo by Pavlo Kubanov

Meanwhile, the boys who were training today on one of the fields of FC "Sparta" base ran for a run, after which they were divided into two groups. Dynamo Kyiv and Serhii Sydorchuk, who played on Friday and Saturday, respectively, had stretching sessions, while the Miners, whose matchup took place on Wednesday, did drills on football technique, game drills and tasks to quickly finish the attack.

The place where the training fields of "Sparta" are located, which will be the home base of the blue-yellow team during this week, deserves a separate story. The Strahov Stadium was built almost a hundred years ago — in 1926, on a huge square — 63 square meters, and in those days it accommodated as many as 220 (!!!) spectators. At first, thousands of takeoffs of the "Sokil" youth sports association were held on this territory. Later, during the times of socialism, sports events were held here with the participation of tens of thousands of young boys and girls who performed choreographic performances on this huge square, and already in our time, large-scale concerts of world-famous rock bands such as the Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, U2, Guns N' Roses and more. 

Photo by Pavlo Kubanov

At the beginning of the XNUMXst century, with the financial help of the city administration, the football club "Sparta" carried out a reconstruction, as a result of which the field was divided into seven football fields of standard size, including artificial turf, as well as a field for mini football.

It is on one of the natural fields that tomorrow the team will train with almost its full squad. Roman Yaremchuk, Ruslan Malinovskyi, Vitaly Mykolenko and Nazariy Rusyn joined the team this evening. After dinner, Artem Dovbyk, Mykhailo Mudryk and Ilya Zabarny will arrive at the location of the blue and yellow team.

Tomorrow, the players whose clubs played today will fly to Prague — Oleksandr Zinchenko and Bohdan Mykhailichenko, as well as Oleksandr Svatok, Oleksandr Pikhalyonok, our "American" Serhii Kryvtsov, whose journey from North America, as a rule, takes some time. The last to join the band is goalkeeper Dmytro Riznyk, who was called up today to replace the injured Andrii Lunin: Dmytro will arrive at the blue-yellow camp on Tuesday.

The roster of the national team of Ukraine

Goalkeepers: Georgy Bushchan ("Dynamo" Kyiv), Anatoly Trubin ("Benfica" Lisbon, Portugal), Dmytro Riznyk ("Shakhtar" Donetsk).

Defenders: Mykola Matvienko, Yukhym Konoplia (both Shakhtar Donetsk), Denys Popov, Oleksandr Karavaev (both Dynamo Kyiv), Oleksandr Svatok (Dnipro-1 Dnipro), Vitaly Mykolenko (Everton Liverpool, England), Ilya Zabarny (Bournemouth, England), Serhiy Kryvtsov (Inter Miami, USA), Bohdan Mykhailichenko (Dynamo Zagreb, Croatia).

Midfielders: Vitaly Buyalskyi ("Dynamo" Kyiv), Taras Stepanenko, Oleksandr Zubkov, Georgy Sudakov, Yehor Nazarina (all Shakhtar Donetsk), Oleksandr Pikhalyonok ("Dnipro-1" Dnipro), Oleksandr Zinchenko ("Arsenal" London, England) , Mykhailo Mudryk ("Chelsea" London, England), Serhii Sydorchuk ("Westerlo", Belgium), Ruslan Malinovskyi ("Genoa" Genoa, Italy).

Forwards: Roman Yaremchuk (Valencia, Spain), Artem Dovbyk (Girona, Spain), Vladyslav Vanat (Dynamo Kyiv), Nazariy Rusyn (Sunderland, England).

In reserve: Oleksandr Tymchyk ("Dynamo" Kyiv).

Oleksandr Hlyvynskyi, spokesman for the national team of Ukraine