The head coach of Ukraine's women's beach soccer team, Yuriy Klimenko, commented on the results of their participation in the EuroLeague Super Final 2024.

In the EuroLeague Super Final 2024, Ukraine's women's beach soccer team secured fifth place overall. In the group stage, our girls lost to Portugal (3:4), Italy (0:1), and the Czech Republic (0:3). In the consolation tournament, Ukraine's team defeated Switzerland (5:3) and lost to the Czech Republic (3:2).

The head coach of the blue-and-yellow team, Yuriy Klimenko, summed up their performance at these prestigious competitions.

"Of course, we are not satisfied with the result. Perhaps if someone had told us before the tournament that we would end up in fifth place, we might have accepted it. However, we held training camps and showed decent play both during the qualification stage in Portugal and at the Super Final in Italy.

Let's say we are satisfied with our team's actions on the soccer field around 70%. We managed to convey and implement the structural actions proposed by the coaching staff. We prepared individually for each opponent, conducted theoretical and practical sessions, and the team followed the coaches' instructions.

The key matches in the battle for medals at EuroLeague were against Portugal and Italy during the Super Final. Our girls looked very good against both teams. In the first match, it was difficult for the Portuguese to counter us throughout two periods, but unfortunately, the decisive role was played by the disqualification of Yuliia Kostyuk, who is one of our team's leaders, as well as a gross referee error at the end of the game, which affected the final result of this important match.

In summary, we lost to Portugal and then to Italy in the next match because Yuliia had to miss it. Although there are no complaints about our team's setup or play against the Italians. We created many goal-scoring opportunities; it’s a shame that the realization was lacking. This was one of our best matches at the tournament.

Regarding the lost match against the Czech Republic, here the news of the death of Snejzana Volovenko's brother on the front line played a role. We learned about this the day before. The match with the Czechs was already irrelevant anyway and the psychological background in the team was very difficult that day. There were slightly different thoughts on this particular day. Of course, the team supported Snejzana. We asked the organizers to announce a minute of silence before the game against the Czech Republic and hold it in memory of Oleksandr Volovenko.

By the way, during the Super Final, there was a very characteristic episode. The men's team from Estonia announced that they would not play their match against Belarus, which sided with the aggressor in the war. The Estonians were supposed to take the field but then declined to participate in the game. We thanked our partners and said we would be on the stands supporting their decision. Unfortunately, the organizers did not allow the Estonians to step onto the soccer pitch, so we held a photo session with them on an auxiliary field, exchanged gifts, and remained good friends. Great respect from us for Estonia's team!

At this tournament, as is known, six debutantes joined our national squad. Some girls have already fully integrated into the collective and are part of the main lineup. Others still need to work on perfecting their skills. But all of them have potential for development in beach soccer. We had many conversations with them; it was pleasant for the girls to be in the team, so they have a desire to play, but time will tell.

Regarding future plans, we received an invitation to participate in the prestigious Neom Beach Soccer Cup in Saudi Arabia, which will take place this November. These are ranking matches, and we confirmed our willingness to play them. We very much want and hope to win a trophy there. In case of a positive decision, we plan to hold a five-to-seven-day training camp ahead of time for preparation.