Everything is dedicated to the local club: t-shirts from different years, full-size cutouts of famous players, including a "clone" of legendary Bayern Munich player Karsten Janssen, club souvenirs, and photos of prominent German footballers along each corridor on six floors of the hotel. There are also giant panoramic murals depicting a packed stadium and players on the field! By the way, fans can easily book a room here and spend time in a wonderful football atmosphere. Provided, of course, they manage to reserve an apartment early enough.

Photos by Oleksandr Hlyvinskyi

If you are worried about the peace of the team, we will reassure you: blue-and-yellow players stay on upper floors of the hotel where fans do not have access. Here, in addition to player and coach rooms, there is also a restaurant, medical room, and equipment area. And all these rooms have panoramic windows right onto the stands. So whether the player eats, takes procedures or listens to coaching staff instructions — they can inadvertently see red-and-black stands of "BayArena" in the window. Therefore, when players stepped onto the beautiful lawn of Leverkusen's stadium, it cannot be said that the place was completely unfamiliar to them since they had been looking at it almost all day long.

Photos by Pavel Kubanov

In the evening training, all footballers of Ukraine's national team participated: that the medical room is empty in blue-and-yellow uniforms — this is an important factor. After a run and warm-up, boys performed exercises on reaction speed, worked on ball control in a square, and moved on to the main part of the session — refining specific moments of tactical schemes for tomorrow's game. Head coach Serhiy Rebrov traditionally explained players different functions in various aspects of play, emphasized episodes that require special attention. Today, by midnight, the coach will form a list of 23 players who can participate in the match against Italy. And we will learn about Rebrov's starting lineup tomorrow 75 minutes before the start of the game.

Photos by Pavel Kubanov

All 30,000 tickets for the match starting at 21:45 Kyiv time have been sold; therefore, we expect that tomorrow's red-and-black arena will be painted in blue-and-yellow colors, which are a great inspiration to every Ukrainian. Players of the national team definitely count on emotions from their fans helping them achieve an historic and so desired for the country victory.

Photos by Pavel Kubanov

National team squad

Goalkeepers: Georgii Bushchan («Dynamo» Kyiv), Anatoliy Trubin («Benfica» Lisbon, Portugal), Dmytro Ryndak («Shakhtar» Donetsk).

Defenders: Mykola Matviyenko, Yurym Konoval, Valeriy Bondar (all — «Shakhtar» Donetsk), Oleksandr Timchyk, Vladyslav Dubynchak (both — «Dynamo» Kyiv), Vitalii Mykolenko («Everton» Liverpool, England), Illia Zabarny («Bournemouth», England), Oleksandr Svatok (SK «Dnipro-1» Dnipropetrovsk), Maksym Taloviyev (LASK Linz, Austria).

Midfielders: Taras Stepanenko, Oleksandr Zubkov, Georgii Sudakov, Yegor Nazarina (all — «Shakhtar» Donetsk), Oleksandr Karavaev («Dynamo» Kyiv), Oleksandr Zinchenko («Arsenal» London, England), Viktor Tsygankov («Girona», Spain), Mykhailo Mudryk («Chelsea» London, England), Serhiy Sydorchuk («Waasland-Beveren», Belgium), Ruslan Malinovskyi («Genoa» Genoa, Italy), Oleksandr Pichalok (SK «Dnipro-1» Dnipropetrovsk).

Forwards: Artem Dovbyk («Girona», Spain), Roman Yaremchuk («Valencia», Spain), Danylo Sikan («Shakhtar» Donetsk).

Reserve list: Dmytro Popov, Vitalii Buialskyi, Vladyslav Vanat (all — «Dynamo» Kyiv), Nazariy Rusin («Sunderland», England).

Oleksandr Hlyvinskyi, press secretary of Ukraine's national team