Semi-defender of the Ukrainian national team Taras Stepanenko spoke about the preparation of the team for their first match in Euro 2024 qualification — against England.

On March 21, early in the morning, the Ukrainian team in London held a theoretical session, after which they began training at the base club of the Premier League "Brentford". Players worked in different groups depending on their previous workload. About the start of training in the blue and yellow camp spoke semi-defender of Donetsk's "Shakhtar" Taras Stepanenko.

"I haven't seen many guys since late September. So yesterday we talked a lot, even during lunch and dinner. I am always happy to be in the national team, meeting friends, talking and finding out how they are doing. 

We are currently training at the "Brentford" training field, and I can say that this is a real European base. Small but the main thing — there are great fields, a good fitness room, everything needed for football. Recently we have been traveling a lot with "Shakhtar", training in Poland at Warsaw's "Legia" base, so we have experience.

In Europe now they make such quiet bases where everything is concentrated for football practice. And since "Brentford" plays in the English Premier League, it obviously has good conditions. We are all satisfied. For this time of year, the condition of the field is excellent because we see that there aren't many good fields in Ukraine's championship right now. Here you can't say the field is perfect, but on a ten-point scale, it would be about seven. 

The first training under Ruslan Rotan's leadership was aimed at helping players who have played a lot recently to recover. In addition, we had quite a long journey yesterday. Those who were involved less played football and worked on tactical exercises. We have little time until the match against England, and Rotan needs to prepare us as well as possible. So from now on everything will be more intense because he has to unite the team after a long break and implement his vision of football.  

He is quite an active coach, young and energetic, who played football for many years before switching to coaching. Rotan already has experience, so he understands that now he is the head coach of the national team, and realizes the responsibility on him. He lives for football, lives for the game against England, and we are all ready to help him. Even some injured players flew in to support the team. We are doing everything to achieve a good result," — said Taras Stepanenko. 

We remind you that the Euro 2024 qualifier match between England and Ukraine will take place on March 26 in London (kick-off at 19.00 Kyiv time).