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Illychivets roar gives Ukraine wings

Coach Yuriy Kalitvintsev thanked the 12,600 fans in attendance at the Illychivets Stadium for helping to inspire Ukraine to a 3-1 semi-final victory over Serbia, who signed off with their dignity intact.

Yuriy Kalitvintsev gives instuctions during Ukraine's 3-1 win against Serbia
Yuriy Kalitvintsev gives instuctions during Ukraine's 3-1 win against Serbia ©UEFA.com

Ukraine coach Yuriy Kalitvintsev thanked the 12,600 supporters in attendance at the Illychivets Stadium for helping to lift his side to a 3-1 semi-final victory against Serbia at the UEFA European Under-19 Championship. The hosts took a first-minute lead thanks to Yevgeniy Shakhov's strike yet Kalitvintsev did not believe that a bright opening was the main reason for his side's success. Meanwhile, Serbia's Aleksandar Stanojević claimed that the best team won despite the valiant efforts of his players.

Yuriy Kalitvintsev, Ukraine coach
The early goal didn't have too big a part to play in how the game went. We scored early on against England and only went on to draw that match. We had a goal coming into this game and we achieved it. It was no secret that Serbia were a very strong team so we didn't need to tell the players a lot. We just gave them the information and they did what was needed. We'd like to say thanks to the fans who supported us tonight. It was a pleasant surprise yesterday when I found out that there were no tickets left for the game. It was great for our players to feel their backing out there; they really helped us. I don't really want to talk about the match in terms of our quality because I'm not completely satisfied about the tactical side of our game. What's important is that we got the desired result.

Aleksandar Stanojević, Serbia coach
First of all I want to congratulate Ukraine; they are a physically very strong team that deserves to go to the final. The atmosphere tonight was fantastic. The fact that we knew there would be a full stadium was one of the reasons we wanted to play against Ukraine. It was tough for us to concede in the first minute as we couldn't really get our game going after that. We had a lot of opportunities to test our set-pieces today but we weren't as dangerous from them as in past games. I thought Denys Garmash was a very good player for our opponents, not just because of the goals he scored but because of his overall technical ability. Over all, I'm satisfied with my players; they gave everything they had. We played with the same players in almost every match and we couldn't match Ukraine in terms of general condition.