A very successful era - both in terms of results (especially in its second half) and the number of interesting football players whom coaches identified among others and gave the opportunity to develop their talent, gaining quality international experience. Many of them are either already in the national team or on their way there.

Photo by the press service of the UAF

But it is worth talking about players prepared for the national team in youth or junior teams not immediately, but after 5-10-15 years - when one can assess quality over a distance. As for statistical results, they are really comparable right here and now.

And we see that in terms of the number of matches at the helm of the youth team, Rуslan Rotan is tied for second-third place in the historical ranking with Sergiy Kovalchuk: both have 47 games. But Rotan still has 11 additional matches leading the Olympic team, which counts as a separate addendum. Only Pavlo Yakovenko led Ukraine's youth team more often - 92 games.

And let it be that in 17 cases direct management of the team was carried out by an assistant delegated by Yakovenko (Hennadiy Litovchenko, Oleh Kuznetsov or Yurii Moroz), since at those times there were effectively two squads of the youth team playing parallel matches, Yakovenko's leadership in this ranking remains unconditional.

Photo by the press service of the UAF

Also entering the top-5 ranking are Oleksiy Mykhaylichenko (42 matches) and Oleksandr Golovko (37).

In total, there have been only 11 full-fledged coaches in Ukraine's youth team history plus a group of specialists who led the team for several games at different times.

Only these 11 coaches participated in official tournaments. Only five of them took the youth team to the knockout stage of qualification, three - to the final tournament, two - to medals in the final phase. And only one managed to lead to the Olympic Games.

Photo by the press service of the UAF

In terms of the number of matches in official tournaments with the youth team, Rуslan Rotan (27) is second only to that same Pavlo Yakovenko (31). If you add three games for the Olympics-2024, the difference will be minimal (30-31). But we won't forget that Yakovenko led the youth team twice...

Matches of Ukraine's Youth Team Coaches in Official Tournaments

Note. Euro cycles are marked by their years of completion (in parentheses - number of matches).