Ruslan Rotan: You only get better when you play against the best

Head coach of the Ukrainian youth team Ruslan Rotan shared his expectations from the quarterfinal match of Euro 2023 (U-21) against France.

- The French national team is one of the strongest teams we face at this tournament. All of them are playing in the top championships. This already says a lot. Individually, they are very strong, we ourselves saw this in the Euro qualifying, when we had two games against them.

Tomorrow is a very important game for us - you need to win micro-duels that will occur on the field. I mean the one-on-one game, at close distances, where the French team players have high skill. But we must be ready, to be a disciplined, compact and to respond with our level of play, from which we are not going to deviate. Let the opponent adjust to us.

You only get better when you play against the best. I told this to my players. They will against perhaps the best team in the tournament. For us, the main motivation is to become better than them. So if we win tomorrow, then you can’t imagine a better motivation. This is the test for our team. I think my guys deserve more. The best motivation is to become the best among the best.