Tonight, at 8:45 p.m., the Estadi Ciutat de València will host an international match that goes far beyond soccer. Ukraine faces Sweden in a semifinal of the UEFA qualifying playoff for the 2026 World Cup, to be held in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
Levante UD’s stadium, with a capacity of 26,354 spectators, will thus serve tonight as the playing field for a national team that has been unable to play in its own country for more than two years.
Why Valencia
Since the start of the war, the Ukrainian national team has played all its home matches outside its territory. For this playoff, the Ukrainian Football Association (UAF) chose Valencia for a combination of practical and symbolic reasons: the quality of the playing surface at the Estadi Ciutat de València, considered among the best in LaLiga; its organizational capacity to host international matches; and the presence of a significant Ukrainian community in the Valencian Community, which will turn the stands into a source of special emotional support for the players.
There is also a strategic factor: if Ukraine advances, it could face Poland in the final, which ruled out using venues in Poland’s neighboring countries as neutral sites.
What’s at stake
Today’s match is a semifinal of the UEFA playoff for the 2026 World Cup. If Ukraine beats Sweden, it will return to the same stadium on March 31 to play the playoff final against the winner of the Poland-Albania match, with a spot in the World Cup at stake.
A ticket to the most important event in world soccer that, for Ukraine, would have a significance far beyond the sporting realm.
The stars of the night
On the Ukrainian side, all eyes will be on Artem Dovbyk, the AS Roma forward and one of Serie A’s hottest scorers, and Viktor Tsygankov, the Girona winger who has made a remarkable leap in quality this season in LaLiga.
For Sweden, the star of the show will be Viktor Gyökeres, the Arsenal striker who has broken all records in Portugal this season and is coming into the match in exceptional form.