The day after the victory over Armenia, the national team of Ukraine held an early morning training session at the city stadium "Warta Łódź" — a venue that holds special memories for Oleksandr Petrakov and players from the youth national squad U-20, who won the world title there three years ago.

Photo by Yevhen Kravtsov

Overall, Łódź has many pleasant associations for Ukrainian football. What to say about the main street of the city (by the way, the longest in Europe — stretching 4.5 km) which bears a name similar to our coach's surname, Piotrkowska. And after yesterday's bright victory over Armenia and emotional farewell of long-time captain Andriy Pyatov, who set a national record for clean sheets, significant events that have happened to us in Łódź only increased.

Photo by Yevhen Kravtsov

The record holder himself, who the day before publicly thanked the team for a long-term family atmosphere and fans — for constant faith and support — left his place with the national team this morning. As a result, two goalkeepers are now preparing for tomorrow's game against Ireland — Dmytro Ryndzak and Andriy Lunin.

Photo by Yevhen Kravtsov

Before the start of training, players of the national team once again publicly supported the campaign for Ukraine's EU membership Embrace Ukraine. StrengthentheUnion, making a joint photo with this compelling call to the European community.

Photo by Yevhen Kravtsov

Oleksandr Petrakov greeted and presented jerseys to two birthday boys of the previous day — fitness coach Ivan Bashтовой and player Oleksandr Syroti, who has already recovered and returned to the main group. In fact, the main gift from the team for his birthday, a victory, the guys have already received, but forgetting about traditions is not worth it.

Photo by Yevhen Kravtsov

Field players today worked in two groups. Players who started yesterday's match ran around the perimeter of the field and did stretching exercises. The rest of the boys completed preparatory work and had a full training session, including game series format. In addition to Oleksandr Syroti, Andriy Yarmolenko also returned to the main group after being ill yesterday. Eduard Sobol has now trained with the team for two consecutive days after overcoming his illness.

Photo by Yevhen Kravtsov

After finishing training, the blue and yellow team spent time with young players born in 2008 from Dnipro FC "Chornomorsk", who were forced to leave their hometown of Odessa due to war and are now training at the club's base in Wrocław, FC Slavia. For 13-14-year-old boys, photos and autographs from their idols became the brightest event during their time in Poland, and this will undoubtedly inspire them for new achievements.

Photo by Yevhen Kravtsov

After returning to the hotel, the national team continued their recovery process, including swimming in the pool. The boys will have a chance for rest until the end of the day.

And tomorrow is already the pre-match day. At 17:30 Kyiv time, head coach Oleksandr Petrakov and a player will hold a press conference at the arena LKS (Zoom link — traditionally in UAF media channels). The national team's official training session before the match against Ireland will be held at the same venue as today's practice — "Warta Łódź". This decision was made to reduce strain on the pitch ahead of tomorrow's game with Ireland. At the same time, guests will hold their official training session on the playing field.

Oleksandr Hlyvinskyi, press secretary of the national team of Ukraine

List of players in the national team of Ukraine

Goalkeepers: Dmytro Ryndzak ("Vorskla" Poltava), Andriy Lunin ("Real", Spain).

Defenders: Oleksandr Karavayev, Illia Zabarnyi, Oleksandr Syroti, Dmytro Popov (all — "Dynamo" Kyiv), Mykola Matviyenko, Valeriy Bondar (both — "Shakhtar" Donetsk), Vitalii Mykolenko ("Everton", England), Eduard Sobol ("Brugge", Belgium), Taras Kachaраба («Slavia», Czech Republic).

Midfielders: Mykhailo Mudryk ("Shakhtar" Donetsk), Serhiy Sydorchuk, Viktor Tsygankov, Mykola Shaparenko (all — "Dynamo" Kyiv), Oleksandr Pichalok (SK "Dnipro-1"), Andriy Yarmolenko ("West Ham", England), Oleksandr Zinchenko ("Manchester City", England), Ruslan Malinovskiy ("Atalanta", Italy), Oleksandr Zubkov ("Ferencváros", Hungary), Danylo Ignatenko ("Bordeaux", France).

Forwards: Artem Dovbyk (SK "Dnipro-1"), Roman Yaremchuk ("Benfica", Portugal), Danylo Sikan ("Hansa Rostock", Germany).