Officially: Luzhnyi is the head coach of the U-19 youth national team of Ukraine

The legendary Ukrainian football player and experienced specialist Oleg Luzhnyi officially headed the youth national team of Ukraine U-19. In this position, he replaced Dmytro Mykhaylenko, who was promoted in July 2026 and became the head coach of the youth national team of Ukraine (U-21). Under Mykhaylenko's leadership, the youth team performed successfully in recent years and reached the semifinals of the European Championship. The team will soon play its first matches under the new head coach. The Ukrainian U-19 national team will have a training camp and three friendly matches at the representative tournament in Spain. September 24: Ukraine - Sweden. September 27: Ukraine - Germany. September 30: Ukraine - Scotland. These sparring sessions will be a key stage of preparation for official competitions. And already in November, the U-19 national team of Ukraine will continue its path in qualifying for the 2027 European Championship. The opponents of our team in the second group stage of the selection will be the national teams of Italy, Israel and Romania. For Oleg Luzhny, this is the first return to work as a head coach in more than ten years. He started his coaching career in 2005, becoming the playing coach of the Latvian club Venta.  Most of his further career was closely associated with Dynamo Kyiv. Luzhnyi served as the head coach of Kyiv twice (in 2007 and 2010), and from 2017 to 2019 he worked as an assistant in Oleksandr Khatskevich's coaching staff. The last club where he worked as a full-time head coach was Simferopol's Tavria in the 2012/13 season. From January 2024, Luzhnyi also holds the position of chairman of the UAF Professional Football Committee. According to him, the main task in the new position will be not only the tournament result, but primarily the training of high-quality and competitive football players for the national team of Ukraine.