{"id":1288347,"date":"2025-09-02T18:45:51","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T15:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/ukraine-france-announcement-and-forecast-of-the-first-match-of-the-2026-world-cup-qualifiers\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T18:45:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T15:45:51","slug":"ukraine-france-announcement-and-forecast-of-the-first-match-of-the-2026-world-cup-qualifiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/ukraine-france-announcement-and-forecast-of-the-first-match-of-the-2026-world-cup-qualifiers\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine-France: announcement and forecast of the first match of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>On Friday, September 5, the Ukrainian national team will begin its journey in qualifying for the 2026 World Cup with a match against France. Due to the war with the Russian occupiers, the nominal home game of the blue-and-yellows will be held in Wroclaw, Poland, at the Tarczynski Arena stadium, with the starting whistle sounding at 21:45 Kyiv time. The match will be the first in Group D, where Ukraine&#8217;s rivals also include Iceland and Azerbaijan.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> The Ukrainian team will try to show a strong performance against the current world vice-champions and score points at the start of the qualifiers, although bookmakers favor the French.<\/p>\n<h3> <strong>Where to watch the Ukraine-France match?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p> The live broadcast of the match will be available on the <strong>MEGOGO<\/strong> media service with subscriptions &#8220;Optimalna&#8221;, &#8220;Sport&#8221;, &#8220;Maximum&#8221; and &#8220;MEGOPACK N+S&#8221;. The game will also be available for free on the <strong>&#8220;MEGOGO SPORT&#8221;<\/strong> TV channel on digital broadcast T2 and cable networks.<\/p>\n<p> The pre-game studio will start at 8:30 p.m., hosted by Volodymyr Kobelkov, and commentating on the match will be Vadym Skichko and Vitaliy Kravchenko. The studio experts will be former head coach of the youth team Oleksandr Holovko and former national team goalkeeper Denys Boyko.<\/p>\n<h3> <strong>Bookmakers&#8217; rates<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p> The bookmakers call the French team the favorite of the match. The victory of &#8220;Les Bleus&#8221; is estimated at a coefficient of <strong>1.41<\/strong> , a draw &#8211; <strong>4.70<\/strong> , and a win for Ukraine &#8211; <strong>8.50<\/strong> . This confirms that Ukrainian football players are considered underdogs, but a sensational result is possible and can be a powerful incentive for Serhiy Rebrov&#8217;s team.<\/p>\n<h3> <strong>Ukrainian national team squad<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p> Goalkeepers:<\/p>\n<ul><\/p>\n<li> Andriy Lunin (&#8220;Real&#8221;, Spain);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Anatoly Trubin (&#8220;Benfica&#8221;, Portugal);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Dmytro Riznyk (&#8220;Shakhtar&#8221;).<\/li>\n<p><\/ul>\n<p> Defenders:<\/p>\n<ul><\/p>\n<li> Valery Bondar, Mykola Matvienko, Yefim Konoplya (&#8220;Shakhtar&#8221;);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Taras Mykhavko, Oleksandr Tymchyk (&#8220;Dynamo&#8221;);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Ilya Zabarny (&#8220;PSG&#8221;, France);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Oleksandr Svatok (&#8220;Austin&#8221;, USA);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Vitaliy Mykolenko (&#8220;Everton&#8221;, England).<\/li>\n<p><\/ul>\n<p> Midfielders:<\/p>\n<ul><\/p>\n<li> Oleg Ocheretko, Georgy Sudakov, Artem Bondarenko (&#8220;Shakhtar&#8221;);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Oleksiy Hutsulyak, Oleksandr Nazarenko (&#8220;Polissya&#8221;);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Oleksandr Zinchenko (&#8220;Arsenal&#8221;, England);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Yegor Yarmolyuk (&#8220;Brentford&#8221;, England);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Ivan Kalyuzhny (&#8220;Metalist 1925&#8221;);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Mykola Shaparenko (&#8220;Dynamo&#8221;);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Viktor Tsygankov (&#8220;Girona&#8221;, Spain);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Oleksandr Zubkov (&#8220;Trabzonspor&#8221;, Turkey).<\/li>\n<p><\/ul>\n<p> Attackers:<\/p>\n<ul><\/p>\n<li> Roman Yaremchuk (&#8220;Olympiacos&#8221;, Greece);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Artem Dovbyk (&#8220;Roma&#8221;, Italy);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> Vladyslav Vanat (&#8220;Dynamo&#8221;).<\/li>\n<p><\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n<h3> <strong>Upcoming games in the tournament<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p> Schedule of matches for the Ukrainian national team in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers:<\/p>\n<ul><\/p>\n<li> <strong>September 5, 21:45<\/strong> \u2013 Ukraine &#8211; France (Wroclaw, Poland);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> <strong>September 9, 19:00<\/strong> \u2013 Azerbaijan &#8211; Ukraine (Baku);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> <strong>October 10, 21:45<\/strong> \u2013 Iceland &#8211; Ukraine;<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> <strong>October 13, 21:45<\/strong> \u2013 Ukraine &#8211; Azerbaijan (Krakow, Poland);<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> <strong>November 13, 21:45<\/strong> \u2013 France &#8211; Ukraine;<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li> <strong>November 16, 19:00<\/strong> \u2013 Ukraine &#8211; Iceland (Warsaw, Poland).<\/li>\n<p><\/ul>\n<p> Thus, the match in Wroclaw will be the first serious test for the Ukrainian national team in Group D. Despite the underdog status, the Ukrainians can surprise their opponent and lay the foundation for successful qualification for the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n<p> Also follow <strong>\u201cPryamim\u201d<\/strong> on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pryamiy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Facebook<\/a> , <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/prm_ua\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Twitter<\/a> , <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/+rtV4dxYu2_cyNjVi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Telegram<\/a> , and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/pryamiy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Instagram.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday, September 5, the Ukrainian national team will begin its journey in qualifying for the 2026 World Cup with a match against France. Due to the war with the Russian occupiers, the nominal home game of the blue-and-yellows will be held in Wroclaw, Poland, at the Tarczynski Arena stadium, with the starting whistle sounding [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":1172805,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76871,76872,76875,76895],"class_list":["post-1288347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2","category-news-feed","category-other-news","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1288347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1172805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1288347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1288347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}