On September 27, the Ukraine U-20 team will begin their fifth World Cup appearance in Chile — under the leadership of Dmitry Mykhaylichenko, who participated in a similar tournament as a player back in 1991.

Back then, almost 18-year-old native of Kropyvnytskyi football, who played for "Dnipropetrovsk", was the youngest player on the Soviet team. And together with the team he won bronze medals in Portugal.

Besides Mykhaylichenko, Ukrainian football schools were represented by his teammates (Sergey Konovalev, Sergey Mamchur, Yevhen Pohlebya), as well as players from "Karpaty" (Volodymyr Sharan), "Metalist" (Oleksandr Pomazun) and "Shakhtar" (Serhiy Shevchuk). The latter became the top scorer of the tournament (five goals).

The champions back then were the Portuguese (in their squad — Luís Figo, Rui Costa, Rui Barros, João Pinto, Abel Xavier, Jorge Costa), who in the final penalty shootout defeated Brazil (in their squad — Roberto Carlos and Giovane Elber).

The Ukraine U-20 team qualified for the World Cup for the first time after winning silver medals at Euro 2000 (U-19). They came out of the group stage but lost in the round of 16. The same scenario played out in two other tournaments (2005, 2015).

In 2019, however, the team led by Oleksandr Petrakov, who already had experience working with the U-20 squad, confidently advanced to the quarter-finals (a crushing victory over Panama — 4:1), then narrowly defeated Colombia and Italy (both times — 1:0), and in the final secured a convincing win over South Korea — 3:1.

They will face South Korea again at the start of their World Cup campaign in 2025.

From Petrakov's champion squad, several players have made it to the senior national team of Ukraine: goalkeepers Andriy Lunin and Dmytro Rytsnik, defenders Valeri Bondar, Denys Popov, Viktor Kornienko and Yurym Konoplia, midfielder Serhiy Bulhetsa, forward Danilo Sikan. Georgiy Titaishvili now plays for the national team of Georgia.

Ukraine U-20 at World Cups