As part of the preparation for the Euro 2022 (U-19) main round qualifiers in futsal, Ukraine's youth national team will participate in the Futsal Week U-19 international tournament in Poreč, Croatia from June 21 to 26.

After the matches in Croatia, the blue and yellow team will travel to Chiorescu, Moldova, where they will play group 6 of the Euro 2022 main round qualifiers from July 7 to 10. The opponents of our team will be the national teams of Andorra, Belgium, and Moldova.

The head coach of Ukraine's youth futsal team, Vitaliy Odegov, commented on the team's plans for the press service of the Ukrainian Futsal Association.

— Mr. Odegov, tell us where you were on February 24 at the start of the full-scale Russian invasion?

— I spent most of my time in Kharkiv. For a long time, my thoughts were not about futsal at all, so I did not engage in coaching activities and also did not maintain my own form.

— How did you keep in touch with the team members during this period?

— For the first month, it was impossible to talk about futsal because of uncertainty regarding the future. After Lviv announced that they would host the main round matches, I thought Ukraine would not participate in the qualification for the final stage. However, later President of AFU Sergiy Vladiko informed me that our group's matches would be rescheduled to another country at a later date. This was resolved through communication between UEFA and representatives from four participating countries in our group. We learned in late April that we will play in July. From this point on, we started working on the team’s preparation plan. Most of the boys are in Ukraine, while several players played in Poland's championship. The players who stayed in Ukraine clearly did not have proper game practice or a regular training process. We gradually prepared for these matches. We conducted remote training sessions to improve the fitness levels of our players.

— The team’s composition has hardly changed compared to friendly matches in Portugal. Can you say that you are satisfied with their content?

— Indeed, the lineup is almost unchanged. We added Sava Lutai from Poland's "Gornik" and Dmitro Ribitsky who trained and played a bit for "Vidzev". Dmitro is quite young, we see potential in him to help the team at the next youth Euro as well. Right now, he also has an opportunity to prove himself. Additionally, after injury, Mykola Huyvan returns.

— Of course, the team really wanted to play their first home official matches on their own court since everything was ready in Lviv…

— Yes, we did. However, considering what happened starting from February 24, it would be inappropriate to call this a minor inconvenience compared to the cancellation of our matches.

— Nevertheless, we will still play these main round matches. How important is this for the current composition of the youth national team?

— We are very grateful that UEFA has given us such an opportunity. Moldova, Belgium, and Andorra are not to blame for the war starting on Ukrainian territory. Therefore, UEFA together with football associations from these countries made a compromise decision — to hold these matches in Moldova from July 7-10. We will compete fairly on the court to determine which of these four countries deserves to be the last participant in the European Championship final stage.

— Before traveling to Croatia, the youth national team played twice against "Energiya". How would you characterize these matches?

— The boys missed playing futsal. Everyone has a strong desire to play. We worked on various tactical aspects. Everything went quite usefully and informatively. We lost both games but the result was not decisive. We are grateful to our opponent for these matches.

— The main stage of preparation for Euro 2022 main round matches will be the Croatian Futsal Week tournament, in which our team will participate again this year. How do you evaluate future opponents?

— This tournament is extremely important for us. There's less than a month until the start of the main round, so friendly matches are necessary for us. I would emphasize exactly that. We don't set a goal to win during Futsal Week, we need to play all matches usefully. It will help improve our game readiness. It’s great that there is an opportunity to participate in this tournament. We especially thank Miko Martic and the Football Federation of Croatia for it. Also, we express gratitude to President of Moldova's Football Federation Leonid Oleynichenko. Right after Futsal Week, we will travel directly to Chiorescu.

Ukraine U-19 Futsal Team Roster

Goalkeepers: Mykola Khomyak, Mykola Huyvan, Dmytro Dyachenko; field players: Andriy Britan, Oleksandr Dychuk, Andriy Tkachuk, Oleksandr Smytanenko, Rostyslav Semenchenko, Vladyslav Syzik, Artem Shchur, Yaroslav Kvasniy, Dmytro Skychyk, David Kalashnik, Dmytro Ribitsky, Maxim Malinovskiy, Sava Lutai.

We remind you that on August 30 last year, the main round draw of the second European Championship in futsal (U-19) took place. According to its results, Mr. Odegov's wards were placed into group 6, where they will meet Belgium, Moldova and the winner of group A from the previous round — Andorra.

The Ukrainian team was designated as a host of one of the mini-tournaments that were supposed to take place at Lviv's "Bosco Arena" on March 16-19. However, due to Russian military invasion, the matches were rescheduled for July 7-10 this year. The games will be hosted by Chiorescu in Moldova.

European Championship 2022 (U-19) Futsal Main Round Group 6

July 7, 2022

Belgium — Moldova  15.00

Ukraine — Andorra  18.00

July 8, 2022

Belgium — Ukraine  15.00

Moldova — Andorra 18.00

July 10, 2022

Andorra — Belgium  15.00

Moldova — Ukraine 18.00

Time is in Kyiv time.

We remind you that according to the results of matches in the main round qualifiers, seven participants of the final tournament of the European Championship in futsal-2022 among youth teams are already known. Along with Spain, which will be the host for the first time, the following countries have joined: Italy, Portugal, France, Poland, Romania and Croatia. The last participant of Euro 2022 will be determined by the results of matches in group 6.

The final stage of Euro 2022 (U-19) futsal championship will take place from September 3 to 10 in Jaén, Spain at "Olivo Arena", which accommodates 6500 spectators. According to the draw, eight tournament participants will be divided into two groups of four teams each, with the top two from each group advancing to semifinals.

We remind you that in the first-ever European Championship among youth futsal players held in 2019, Ukraine's national team qualified for the final tournament and took third place in their group. And one of the teams that beat us back then became the champion — Spain.