"Blue-yellows" beat Portugal before 2024 World Cup.
The Ukraine national futsal team beat Portugal in a friendly international tournament match before the start of the 2024 World Cup. The match in Portugal ended with a score of 3:6in favor of the “blue-yellows”.
Andriy Melnyk opened the scoring in the 7th minute. In the 13th minute, Ukraine doubled its advantage – captain Petro Shoturma scored from the out, the ball ricocheted off the opponent's goalkeeper and flew into the goal, so it was recorded as an own goal. For Shoturma, this was the 100th match for the national team.
In the 16th minute, Shoturma scored a double. It should be noted that one of the heroes of the first half was also Ukrainian goalkeeper Alexander Sukhov, who blocked two double penalties.
In the second half, each team managed to score three times. Igor Chernyavsky, Nazar Shved and Nikolai Mykytyuk scored for the “blue-yellows”.
Thus, Oleksandr Kosenko's charges won a confident victory over the Portuguese, who are the current European and world champions.
Review of the Portugal vs. Ukraine match
Earlier at the tournament in Portugal, the Ukrainians defeated Costa Rica (4:0) and Cuba (7:0).
Before the World Cup, the “blue-yellows” will play two more friendly matches – with Bosnia and Herzegovina (August 28) and Libya (August 30).
The 2024 Futsal World Cup will be held from September 14 to October 6 in Uzbekistan. During the draw, the Ukrainian team was seeded from the second basket and got into Group C, where it will play Argentina, Afghanistan and Angola.
The top two teams from each group, as well as four of the six teams that take third place in their groups, will advance to the 1/8 finals.
The Ukrainian team will play in the Futsal World Cup for the sixth time in history. The best result of the “blue-yellows” is fourth place in the debut tournament for our team in 1996.
At the 2004 and 2008 World Cups, the Ukrainian team stopped in the 2nd group round (top 8), in 2012 it reached the quarterfinals, and in 2016 it was eliminated in the 1/8 finals.
