In the 2025 World Cup quarter-finals in Chile, Ukraine's U-20 national team lost to Spain (0:1) and concluded their tournament participation.

After the match, players of the blue-and-yellow team Bogdan Budko, Vladyslav Kysil', and Vladyslav Kravivtsov shared their emotions with the press service of the UAF.

Bogdan Budko (halfback): «The emotions after the match are not very positive, as we lost. However, our team showed itself very well at this championship. We played honorably against Spain and fought until the last minute. Somewhere luck was missing, but there is still a lot ahead for us. 

This time we had to play more without the ball, which is much harder because you have to keep moving and acting in defense. So when the ball comes to you, you are already a bit tired. To get into overtime or even further, I think we lacked finishing touches. We needed to put more pressure on their penalty area and shoot more from distance...

From the tournament itself and from Chile, my emotions are only positive. The opponents were very strong, and each game was like a final for us. We fought until the end. Of course, we wanted to reach the finals and even win, but it turned out as it did. I can only thank my teammates, coaches, physiotherapists, and administrators — everyone involved. Everything was very well organized».

Photo by Andriy Yushchak

Vladyslav Kysil' (defender): «Of course, we are very disappointed because we wanted to go further, but the match was tough and it turned out this way. For me, this was a very important game as well as the World Cup itself. After all, my first call-up to the national team — and such a high-level tournament. We knew Spain would play like that, and we prepared for it. We played well, but we lacked something in front to equalize».

Photo by Andriy Yushchak

Vladyslav Kravivtsov (goalkeeper): «There is some disappointment after this match. The boys gave everything on the field. It was a good game, we had chances to score and defend well, but somewhere luck was missing, and in the end, we conceded. It's very hard to play without the ball, especially against such a team as Spain. The opponent controlled the game throughout the entire match, which is indeed difficult. The goal conceded was from a set-piece they executed. I think it wasn't a rehearsed combination but rather on intuition. We didn't quite understand their defense, maybe we could have gone offside. Let's take a look and draw conclusions.

If you consider the entire tournament, we came out of first place in our group, did everything we could. I am very satisfied with the team. We were unlucky somewhere with the draw, but you saw from the game that we also had moments and could have gone past this Spain».