Kosenko: We will give all our strength to win medals at the World Championships

Head coach of the Ukrainian national futsal team Oleksandr Kosenko spoke about the team’s preparation for the 2024 World Cup.

“How can we evaluate our performance? I think we won both the first and second qualifying groups, so I am happy with this result. We must always strive, improve our game, because all teams progress, improve. And we are no exception, we also strive to improve. We will try to do this in the future.”

“We made this decision ourselves, and came to the conclusion that this time will be enough for us to prepare well. We will have at least five sparring matches before the World Championship, so we think this time will be enough to prepare well.”

“I think we have good opponents. It may seem that Cuba and Costa Rica do not look very strong on paper, but each team has at least five or six players of a very high level. Portugal, of course, is the world champion. I like the selection of opponents. These games are very useful, and they are well matched to our opponents in the World Cup group, Angola and Afghanistan.”

“We will be in Kazakhstan from September 1, it is close to Uzbekistan, so I think we will have enough time to adapt. It is through training in Kazakhstan that we plan to prepare for the conditions in Uzbekistan and our matches at the World Cup.”

“I want us to win every match. I have often encountered the fact that when you say something, it is not always good. I will only say one thing: we will try and give our all in every game to win medals at the World Championship, but we will focus on each game and not look too far ahead. We will focus on each next game.”

Earlier, Kosenko announced the list of players who will take part in the training camp before the 2024 World Cup. The final roster will include 14 players. In preparation for the final part of the World Championship, the yellow-blues will play in a tournament in Portugal (August 22-25), where, in addition to the host team, the national teams of Cuba and Costa Rica will also play.

The 2024 World Cup will be held in Uzbekistan. Kosenko’s team will play in Group C and will begin their performance at the tournament on September 15 with a match against the favorite of the quartet, the Argentina team. Three days later, the blue-yellows will play Angola. The Ukrainian team will complete the group stage with a match against Afghanistan on September 21.

Let us recall that the Ukrainian team made it to the World Cup by beating Poland (5:3) in the decisive match of the elite round of qualification. In addition to the blue-yellows, Kazakhstan, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Croatia also received tickets to the world forum from Europe.