At the beginning of May, Ukraine's beach soccer team started training at the Sunrise arena in Hydropark as part of their preparation for the 2022/2023 season. In these challenging times, national team coach Mykola Kostyenko managed to gather a significant portion of our squad and motivate them to train. He also maintains contact with those who cannot participate due to various reasons.

In an interview with the official website of the Ukrainian Football Association, Mykola Kostyenko spoke about the intricacies of preparing the team during wartime: "At the end of March and beginning of April, we decided with the president of the Beach Soccer Association of Ukraine that despite the war, it was necessary to start preparing for the season. We reached out to players and club presidents and invited all those interested to gather at Hydropark."

The core of the team consisted of footballers from "Alternativa," joined by members of the national team who were in Kyiv. These included Dmytro Voytenko, Maxim Voytok, Yaroslav Zavorotnyi, Oleksandr Korniychuk, Ivan Glutsyky, Igor Levchenko, Oleg Serenko, Denis Sobotyuk, Andriy Nerush, Oleg Shitnik, and Andriy Borsuk. At the same time, Igor Borsuk, Oleg Zborovskyy, Yurii Shevtsia, and Dmytro Medvid were absent for various important reasons.

We train four times a week, and last weekend we even organized a small tournament. In the first match, Ukraine's national team played against "Alternativa" and won with a score of 9-5. In the second game, we faced a team from the Ukrainian Armed Forces and also secured victory. I would like to note that the competition in these matches was fierce.

My main goal at this stage is psychological unloading and maintaining fitness levels. Since apart from "Alternativa" and a few other teams, no one else is training right now, it's great that the boys have an opportunity to maintain their tone. Training followed the plan; we had microcycles with moderate load and two-sided games. That is, 50% of the session consisted of warm-up and specific exercises, and another 50%—actual games. In fact, the opposition in these two-sided matches was quite serious, as they were playing what one might call "for punishment," which immediately raised players' desire to compete.

We remind you that Ukraine's national team will soon play in Kyiv at the Eugene Ryabchuk Memorial Tournament. Further, our team will prepare for the qualifying stage of Euroleague-2022, taking place from June 30 to July 3 in Nazaré, Portugal. In case of a successful performance in the qualifier, Mykola Kostyenko's protégés will qualify for the Euroleague Super Final, which will take place in Italy (September 6–9). The qualification for the Super Final is also a preliminary qualifying round for the European Games 2023, to be held in Krakow.

Also this summer, Ukraine's national team awaits selection for the World Beach Games-2023 under the auspices of the International Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC), which will take place in Catania, Italy.