The Polish cities where the UEFA Euro Championships 2012 will take place, have been the hosts for the Polish Ukrainian Academic Football Tournament – StudentEuro 2011. The final games have been won by the Polish student teams.

The idea of this student competition arose when Ukraine and Poland were given the right to host the European Football Championships in 2012. At the initiative of university sports organizations in both countries, with help from the Ukrainian Universities and Sport Committee, was the first tournament organized. It took place in 2010 in four Ukrainian Euro 2012 host cities.



The organizer of the second edition was the Polish University Sports Association (AZS). The student football players from 20 universities from both countries have played in Gdansk, Poznan, Wroclaw and Warsaw. The main goal was to organize a tournament only for Polish-Ukrainian teams.

In the opinion of General Secretary of AZS, Mr Bartlomiej Korpak, both tournaments have been fully successful, not only regarding sport aspects. “It was a big highlight for the Polish students to have the opportunity to visit such cities as Donetsk or Kharkov, which because of the distance is not very often visited by Polish tourists. They saw there among other things the new built stadiums for Euro 2012, which were almost finished last year. We can observe in our student environment a rising interest in our west neighbour, the best proof of that is the high number of people who are learning Russian on their own initiative. Our Ukrainian guests were also very pleased about the tournament this year. They visited many Polish cities, they had the chance to have a look on our football stadiums, to see the living conditions in the student dormitories, to make contacts, and even friendships with Polish colleges,” said the General Secretary of AZS.



Chairman of the Committee for Physical Education and Sport of Ukraine Mr Wiaczeslav Gamov, honoured the best teams with trophies and awards, he underlined that this Ukrainian-Polish academic sport event was a great success and that it is worth to continue this meetings in the future, maybe even just after the finals of the UEFA Euro Championships next year.

The final matches were held in Warsaw. The third place was taken by Academy of Physical Education from Warsaw which beat Lviv Army Academy with 6:1. In the grand final the student team of Adam Mickiewicz University from Poznan won against the team from the Kharkov State Zooveterinary Academy 3:1.



During the closing ceremony the best athletes were also awarded. The goalkeeper from Academy of Physical Education, Jakub Szkopinski, was chosen as the best Polish player. The best Ukrainian player was Artiom Broznikov from the Kharkov State Zooveterinary Academy. Most valuable player of the whole tournament was Maciej Schober from the winning team.