The Ukrainian Olympic football team has lost its first match in its history. The Ukrainians lost to the Japanese Olympic team with a score of 0:2, reports Komersant ukrainskyi
Ukraine’s U-23 national team played its first ever match in the Japanese city of Fukuoka at the Kitakyushu Stadium. It was a friendly match in which Ukraine lost 2-0. The goals were scored by Kane Sato (48 mins) and Satoshi Tanaka (76 mins).
The fact that this match was the first in the history of the Ukrainian national team can be explained by the format of international football competitions and the lack of previous successes of Ukraine in Olympic competitions. The fact is that since 1992, U-23 teams, i.e. players under the age of 23, have been taking part in Olympic football tournaments. Each team is allowed to have only three players older than this age.
At the same time, in the European region, the qualifiers for the Olympic Games are played among U-21 youth teams, i.e. players under the age of 21. Ukraine has never qualified for the Olympic Games before and, accordingly, has not participated in the final competitions. Therefore, there was simply no need to form a U-23 team before.
However, last year, the youth national team of Ukraine under the leadership of Ruslan Rotan qualified for the 2024 Olympic Games for the first time in history, following the results of the qualifying tournament. Therefore, there was a need to form a U-23 team to play in the tournament.
At the Olympic Games in Paris, the Ukrainian national team will play in Group B, where its rivals will be Argentina, Morocco, as well as the third Asian team, which will be determined by the results of the upcoming qualifying tournament. The Olympic football tournament will take place from 24 July to 10 August 2024.
The following squad was announced for the friendly match with Japan:
- goalkeepers: Kirill Fesyun (Kolos Kovalevka), Georgy Ermakov (Alexandria);
- defenders: Anton Bol (Zorya Luhansk), Marian Farina (Metalist 1925 Kharkiv), Roman Didyk (Rukh Lviv), Maksym Dyachuk (Dynamo Kyiv), Oleksandr Martyniuk (Oleksandriya), Yegor Matsenko (Schląsk, Poland);
- midfielders: Eldar Kuliyev (Zira, Azerbaijan), Ivan Zhelezko (Lechia, Poland), Artem Kulakovsky, Kyrylo Sigeev, Denys Shostak, Artem Shulyansky (all – Oleksandriya), Oleksandr Nazarenko (Polissya Zhytomyr), Oleksiy Sych, Oleh Fedor (both – Rukh Lviv), Oleksiy Kashchuk (Shakhtar Donetsk);
- forward: Mykola Kukharevych (Swansea, Wales).