The Ukrainian U-20 national team started the 2025 World Cup in Chile with a victory. In their opening match, under coach Dmytro Mykhaylyenko, they defeated South Korea with a score of 2:1.

After the game, Yaroslav Karman and Bohdan Budko shared their emotions with the press service of the UAF. Karman was named the best player of the match.

Yaroslav Karman (defender): "We are very happy because this was our first official match, which is important for the team, and we won it. So the joy is double. The award as the best player is more about boosting morale; what's most important is that we secured a victory. Today, we truly had a team: everyone gave their all and everyone deserves recognition."

In the second half, South Korea scored from a corner kick and started creating more opportunities. But we held strong under pressure and won. I believe that the refereeing was objective.

Bohdan Budko (defender): "The start was very intense: we were charged up, constantly pushing forward while our opponents mostly defended. We quickly created chances and scored twice. We could have scored more, but that's football — anything can happen. Later, we focused on maintaining the result. This is probably psychology: after scoring twice, you want to keep the score. The most important thing is that we won.

In the second half, the Koreans made three substitutions and began attacking more aggressively with pressing tactics. They played with two forwards, making it difficult for us to break out of defense, but we held firm. Karman was named MVP of the match — I'm genuinely happy for him. Though, in my opinion, anyone could have received this award today — everyone worked at maximum capacity."

Photo by Andriy Yushchak