Today in the outskirts of Lisbon, Cascais, the Ukrainian U-18 handball team played their first of two scheduled friendly matches against Portugal's U-17 team.

The match at "Arena Portugal" started well for Igor Moskvichov's protégés, with Artem Malynovsky scoring after just 5 minutes to take the lead. Four minutes later, Malynovsky completed his hat-trick. By halftime, the blue and yellow team could have increased their advantage, but our players' accuracy was not enough.

Immediately after halftime, Daniil Litvinovsky scored from a long distance to upset the Portuguese opponents for the third time. Only on the 31st minute did the home team manage to score with Ricardo Duarte's effort. On the 33rd minute, Thomas Sha reduced Ukraine's lead to a minimum, but in just one minute, Oleksandr Burlak scored the fourth goal against Portugal.

Thus, 4:2 — victory for the Ukrainian team.

U-17 vs U-18 friendly handball match

Portugal (U-17) — Ukraine (U-18) — 2:4 (0:2)

Goals: Duarte (31), Sha (33) — Malynovsky (5, 9), Litvinovsky (22), Burlak (34).

Portugal (U-17): Borges — Cardozo, D. Antunes, Duarte, Capristano; Martins, Ferreira, H. Antunes, Cunha, Fernandes, Grinchuk, Paulo, Sha, Pereira.

Ukraine (U-18): Vishnevetsky — Burlak, Zaritsky, Malynovsky, Litvinovsky; Nikitin, Tkachuk, Kryvko, Bazylivsky, Pikalov, Melnyk, Zavgorodniy, Haiduchik.

The second friendly match between Portugal's U-17 and Ukraine's U-18 will take place tomorrow in Cascais (start time — 19:00 Kyiv time).