Sydorchuk hopeful of keeping Ukraine´s Euro 2024 fairytale alive against Belgium

Serhiy Sydorchuk is hopeful of keeping Ukraine’s fairytale journey at Euro 2024 alive heading into their final group game against Belgium.

The Blue and Yellow conclude their Group E campaign in Stuttgart on Tuesday, knowing a win will secure their place in the last-16 of the tournament.

Slovakia face Romania in the other game, and with all three sides level on points heading into Matchday 3, the emphasis on winning has heightened.

Sydorchuk said his team know a triumph in their first meeting with the Red Devils would see them through to the last-16 as one of the top two, but he did not want to tempt fate.

“When you say something very loudly, the echo will be very loud as well, so I think we should be silent and we should do what we can do, and we’ll see tomorrow at 8 PM what we could do,” Sydorchuk said.

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— Ukrainian Association of Football (@uafukraine) June 24, 2024

Ukraine are looking to reach the knockout stages of a major tournament for a third time, having done so at the 2006 World Cup and Euro 2020.

All four of their final group stage games have ended 1-0 – winning the first in 2006 against Tunisia but have lost their last three (vs England at Euro 2012, Poland at Euro 2016, and Austria at Euro 2020).

Sydorchuk knows the importance of a victory for the people of Ukraine and is hopeful that securing qualification alleviate some of the misery caused by the Russian invasion of his homeland.

“What will it mean for the country is that we will go on with this fairytale, this really fantastic fairytale for several more days for the whole country, because we are at war for almost 900 days,” Sydorchuk said.

“For the Ukrainians, every game, every event like that means a lot, it means for them that they can come back to the usual pre-war times.”