Ukraine national team defender Valeri Bondar shared his impressions from the start of the country's main team preparation for the Euro 2024 playoff semifinal match against Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Yesterday, the Ukraine national team held their first full day of training in Marbella, Spain. The team trained on the pitch at the Banus football center. The start of preparation for the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina was commented on by defender Valeri Bondar.

"Today's work focused more on physical exercises. There were a lot of sprint speed loads. But everything with the ball, including finishing attacks. This is always good for football players, especially when you have an opportunity to shoot at goal. We are working on these moments during training so that in the match we can score from different positions."

Not long ago, we were playing in the Ukrainian championship in quite cold weather, but now we've moved to a much warmer climate. It's very pleasant even to wake up when you're greeted by sunshine. You get out of bed with a smile, meeting a new day in good spirits. It's nice to work under such conditions on good fields. That's why we are preparing in Spain. This is extremely important for football players and coaches. Here the conditions are ideal for working on necessary exercises that will help us show our best in upcoming matches.

And a very difficult match awaits us. Bosnia and Herzegovina — it's a good team. The semifinal consists of one match, where anything can happen. It doesn't matter how they performed in their group. Yes, not so well, but this team deserves praise. We will prepare with all seriousness because qualifying for Euro is our big dream. We want to delight our fans," — said Valeri Bondar.

Recall that the semifinal match of the Euro 2024 playoff qualification Bosnia and Herzegovina — Ukraine will take place on March 21 in Zenica city and will start at 8:45 PM local time (9:45 PM Kyiv time).