On Sunday, March 28, the first training session of the Ukraine U21 team started. The team will prepare for the qualifying round of the 2011/13 European Under-21 Championships. We should remind that present squad is taking part in qualification of EURO 2011 U21. But the coach Pavlo Yakovenko decided to start working with the team of the next convocation in order to have more time for preparing footballers for the tournament.

Short term
A qualifying cycle of EURO 2013 U21 will start in March 2011. Meanwhile present qualifying tournament EURO 2011 U21 will end on October 13, 2010. So, only two FIFA dates will be left for preparing of a new team − November 17 and February 9, 2011. Pavlo Yakovenko supposes such a short term for preparing of a combat collective to bet enough.

Second front
That’s why it is planned that the team of 1990 year of birth will have two training sessions and several friendly matches before the start of the official games. Both sessions will be held under direct supervision of Pavlo Yakovenko. The coach called 24 footballers, most of which were not called before, and ten footballers haven’t ever played for any of Ukrainian youth teams.

Ukraine squad (1990 year of birth):
Goalkeepers: Ivan Pitsan (Karpaty Lviv), Viacheslav Bazylevych (Shakhtar Donetsk), Gennadii Ganiev (Chornomorets Odesa);
Defenders: Dmytro Kushnirov, Sergii Liulka, Sergii Loginiv (all from Dynamo), Oleksandr Stetsenko (Metalist Kharkiv), Andrii Nesterov, Rostyslav Pievniev (both from Metalurh Zaporizhia), Vitalii Momot (Vorskla Poltava), Artur Zapadnia (Illichivets Mariupol), Artem Baranovskyi (Metalurh Donetsk), Yurii Putrash (Obolon Kyiv);
Midfielders: Oleksandr Tovstiak, Igor Plastun (both from Obolon), Dmytro Vladov (Vorskla), Sergii Rybalka (Dynamo), Artur Karnoza (Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk), Ivan Bobko (Chornomorets), Yaroslav Yampol (Shakhtar), Volodymyr Gudymov (Karpaty), Artem Gromov (Vorskla);
Forwards: Sergii Shevshuk (Dynamo), Roman Kuniev (Vorskla).