Ukraine – Belgium: where to watch the broadcast, team lineups, bookmakers’ forecasts
20 March 13:25
Today, March 20, 2025, the first match of the 2024/2025 Nations League playoffs between the men’s national football teams of Ukraine and Belgium will take place in the Spanish city of Murcia at the Enrique Roca de Murcia Stadium. The game is scheduled to start at 21:45 Kyiv time, Komersant ukrainskyi reports.
The winner of the two-match confrontation will be eligible to play in the next draw of the League of Nations in the elite division A. Thus, this match will be an important test for both teams.
History of the confrontation and positions in the FIFA rankings
Today’s meeting will be only the second in the history of confrontations between Ukraine and Belgium. The previous match took place as part of the European Championship and ended in a zero-all draw. At the same time, the Belgian squad has undergone some changes, which adds intrigue to the upcoming match.
According to the updated FIFA rankings published on December 19, 2024, the Belgian national team is ranked eighth. Ukraine is currently ranked 25th in this list.
Application of the national team of Ukraine
Head coach of the national team Serhii Rebrov has decided on the squad for the match against Belgium. The list includes the following players:
- Andriy Lunin
- Yukhym Konoplya
- Bohdan Mykhailichenko
- Oleksiy Sych
- Oleksandr Svatok
- Ivan Kalyuzhnyi
- Andriy Yarmolenko
- Georgiy Sudakov
- Roman Yaremchuk
- Mykola Shaparenko
- Vladyslav Vanat
- Anatoliy Trubin
- Ilya Zabarnyi
- Vitaliy Buyalsky
- Viktor Tsygankov
- Vitaliy Mykolenko
- Alexander Zinchenko
- Yegor Yarmolyuk
- Oleksiy Hutsulyak
- Yegor Nazarina
- Oleksandr Nazarenko
- Mykola Matvienko
- Dmytro Riznyk
At the same time, Artem Dovbyk and Valeriy Bondar were not included in the application among the players who are in Murcia.
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Comments before the game
On the eve of the first playoff match, Ukraine’s head coach Serhii Rebrov spoke to journalists. In particular, he commented on the changes in the opponent’s lineup and the peculiarities of this confrontation compared to the Euro match:
“The players are almost the same, we are adding more players. I think these are completely different matches. At the Euros, we needed to win, we created enough chances, we could have won. The Belgians were satisfied with a draw, they were not as aggressive. In the League of Nations, it was a completely different team that played much more intensely than against us at the Euros. We have to focus on our game and respect Belgium. The confrontation consists of two matches. We need to understand that tomorrow we play only the first half.
Together with Serhii Rebrov, the press conference was also attended by the defender of the national team of Ukraine Ilya Zabarnyi. When asked what to focus on in the match and how dangerous the Belgians could be, he answered with a standard cliché:
“An important match, there have been no national team games for a long time. For every player, it’s not just a match. You go out and demonstrate the strength of Ukrainians to the whole world. Moreover, everyone knows what the situation is now. There is a war going on, people need to be given something positive. We will try to do that. It is important to go out and show everything we can. I know that a lot depends on us, and we can give a lot.”
Who will win?
Bookmakers consider the Belgian national team to be the undisputed favorite. William Hill offers odds of 1.80 for their victory, while the victory of the Ukrainian national team is estimated at 4.40
Where to watch
The match will be broadcast by the MEGOGO media service on the OTT platform, as well as for free on the MEGOGO SPORT TV channel on T2 and cable networks.
