Russia's Makarenko in for the long haul

Nobody has travelled as far to get to the UEFA European Women's Under-19 Championship as Daria Makarenko and the Russia centre-back is not ready to go home yet.

Beaten 2-1 by hosts Italy in their Group A opener, next up on Thursday is a meeting with a Belgium side Russia lost to in qualifying – Makarenko knows she and her team-mates have to up their game. "Italy had tremendous support while for all of us it is our first final tournament," she told UEFA.com. "At times we lacked confidence, although I wouldn't say we played particularly badly. Luck wasn't on our side, either, as we created enough chances – we just couldn't convert them."

One fell to Makarenko herself three minutes from time, but the set piece specialist was not able to apply the sort of finish from 25 metres that helped down Serbia in the second qualifying round. "I failed to make clean contact with the ball so the free-kick was off target," said the 19-year-old. "It's a shame, really, as I do a lot of work on set pieces in training. Normally I go for power in such situations; it just wasn't to be this time."

Hailing from the Siberian city of Omsk, near the Kazakh border – "it's the place for me" she says – Makarenko had an arduous 4,400km trek to reach Cervia. "First I had a three and a half hour flight to Moscow, then it took about the same time again to reach Italy," she explained. "The time difference between Cervia and Omsk is five hours, too, though we had a training camp in Venice before the start of the tournament so I had plenty of time to adapt."

Aleksandr Shagov's team do not have long to adapt to this level, however, and Thursday's meeting with Belgium in Forli is decisive with both teams seeking their first point of the tournament. They are no strangers, either: Belgium beat Russia 1-0 on 5 April during the second qualifying round to book their place in Italy as best runners-up. Crucially, though, Russia had already confirmed their progress as group winners.

"I played the whole 90 minutes," the FC Irtysh Omsk defender said. "We had already booked the place but we were still motivated and to me we were a better team. Basically they capitalised on our single mistake at the back, while we were unable to convert our chances. I hope for a change of fortunes on Thursday as we want to prove we're not tourists here and can compete at this level." It will be a long trip back for Makarenko otherwise.