Futsal World Championship Medals. Head coach of the Ukrainian team summed up.

The Ukrainian futsal team won bronze at the 2024 World Championship

The head coach of the Ukrainian futsal team, Oleksandr Kosenko, summed up the team's performance at the 2024 World Championship in Uzbekistan.

We are very pleased. Bronze medals at the world championship are a very worthy result. We dreamed of this, but it was not easy to achieve. Before the tournament, we did not set such specific goals. We just asked the players to do their best from match to match and move forward. Thank you to all the guys, all the fans who supported us. It was great!

According to the coach, the celebration of the bronze medals was only slightly possible in Tashkent, as there was little Time. The flight and transfer home were very difficult.

The team started the tournament with news of a defeat against Argentina. «We played quite well against Argentina too. It just happened that way. So no one needed much adjustment. We didn’t have any «slump». We lacked some experience in matches with such teams. At 1:2, we made some mistakes. After the match, we analyzed them and played on with adjustments», the coach shared.

About the match with Spain: «The Spaniards were indeed stronger on paper. They are more experienced and have many such tournaments behind them. But in that match, Venezuela was more united and probably had more desire among the players. And they had enough skill and dedication to achieve a positive result. I think this is a significant achievement for the Venezuelans. I won’t say we were lucky because Venezuela defeated Spain, and that means something. We didn’t pick opponents for ourselves, didn’t adjust, for example, to exit from the second or third place in the group. We were constantly asked about this, but we didn’t even think about such things. We immediately decided that we would play only for victory, and whoever would be the opponent, so be it».

About the team captain's injury: «Petro Shoturma has now flown to Germany, where he will have surgery. We support him, wish him a speedy recovery and return to our team. He is a very important player for us, and we hope for the best. His injury is very serious, so it will take time for recovery. 

The team lost their captain during the match against Brazil, but the players still played well and tried to encourage Petro. Although they couldn’t win, the coach thanked the guys for their game and dedication.

Regarding other players: «I would give each of our players an individual prize because all the guys showed themselves from the best side. Including Semenchenko and Abakshyn. They deserved their awards one hundred percent», said Oleksandr Kosenko.

Overall, the Ukrainian futsal team took third place at the 2024 World Championship in Tashkent. Rostyslav Semenchenko became the third player of the tournament, and Danyil Abakshyn was the second top scorer of the championship.

In the group stage, the Ukrainian team suffered a defeat from Argentina, and then defeated Angola and Afghanistan. In the playoffs, our team beat the teams of the Netherlands and Venezuela but lost to Brazil in the semifinals.