Semi-defender of the Ukraine youth team Georgiy Sudakov was named the best player in the quarterfinal match of Euro-2023 (U-21) against France (3:1) according to UEFA. After the game, he participated in a press conference along with the head coach Ruslan Rotan.

— How do you generally manage to play alongside Mykhailo Mudryk? It was his first match at the tournament, but both of you have such strong chemistry. How much did this help you and the team?

— Today I cannot single out anyone specifically — Mudryk or Bondarenko... The whole team fought, was one unit. If we talk about our tandem with Mykhailo, of course, we feel each other. Earlier, I used to give him similar passes and he would score, we had slightly different roles. But I know what he is capable of, how he can pass, so my task was to run and open up. That's exactly what happened. We broke down the French, they play very high, so we had to play behind them. So I ran into the zone and Mudryk passed me the ball. The pass was similar to one he made in a national team match against North Macedonia at Zigerkovka. He knows how to do this, we all know it well. So there is no special chemistry — just a game moment.

— How has the French team changed compared to your matches in Euro-2023 (U-21) qualifiers? Or perhaps first and foremost, has Ukraine's team changed?

— I already said that we have changed the most. We cannot compare that year with this one. We all grew up, gained experience, almost everyone in our lineup played in European competitions. If talking about me, I've already played several matches for the national team. After such games, you have experience and play these matches completely differently. So it's not comparable.

And Ruslan Petrovich rightly said that this is now a completely different team. In France, the team didn't change much if we look at the surnames, just like ours. But first of all, we changed individually in terms of skill. Our experience and level of play have increased several times over. We need to rely on our own game regardless of who the opponent is. Today we showed that when we play as a team, we can play football with the ball. Of course, all players in France are strong individually, it's hard to defend against them. There were moments when we had to endure. But I'm sure all Ukrainians watching the match are proud of us because we know how to play football and not just defend.