Italy has asked UEFA to make Ukraine play an unnecessary friendly match

The Ukrainian national team will play a friendly match against the Polish team "Lechia" from the city of Gdansk in November. The idea for this match came about due to an agreement between the head coaches of both teams, Sergey Rebrov and Shimon Grabovsky.

However, according to Ukrainian journalist Viktor Vatsko, the situation is not as straightforward as it seems.

According to his information, the Italian national team, which will first play against North Macedonia on November 17th in the Euro 2024 qualifiers and then face Ukraine in a decisive match on November 20th, has requested that UEFA compel Ukraine to play a friendly match.

UEFA reportedly offered the Ukrainian national team a match against Laos on November 17th, but in the end, the Ukrainian coaching staff arranged the match with Lechia without violating any rules.

The Ukrainian national team and "Lechia" will play this friendly match in a closed environment, without spectators or television coverage. The teams have agreed that they can make up to 10 substitutions. The match will take place in Gdansk on November 16th.

Sergey Rebrov, the head coach, commented on the upcoming friendly match against Lechia: "Right now, it's not needed, but UEFA tells us that we must play this game. I believe that it's not needed at the moment, but unfortunately, we have to play this friendly match."

On November 20th, Ukraine will play the final Euro 2024 qualifying match in Group C against Italy in Germany at the Bay Arena.