“For a long time football in Ukraine has been backward looking but that is beginning to change at last. For the first decade after Soviet fragmentation everything revolved round Valeriy Lobanovskyi and for the decade after his death everything revolved round Andriy Shevchenko, whom Lobanovskyi had hailed as being closest to his ideal of the ‘universal player’ and who revered the Colonel and his ideas. Lobanovskyi’s genius had been to keep evolving. He stayed at the top of the game for 35 years because of his ability to adapt but his legacy was stasis. Everything came back to his way of doing things; his philosophy became a religion that had to be obeyed.”
Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
Mykhaylo Fomenko reignites Ukraine’s World Cup qualifying campaign
“Out of chaos has come hope. When Oleh Blokhin quit as national coach of Ukraine after the 1-1 draw against England at Wembley to take charge of Dynamo Kyiv, there were three schools of thought. One thought it an outrage that anybody should abandon what was perceived as a patriotic duty; one accepted that, having spent 17 years as a player at Dynamo, the emotional pull was too strong to resist; the other breathed a sigh of relief at the deposition of a cranky and authoritarian manager whose teams had played crabby, bad-tempered football. As Dynamo’s slow decline continues – they lie sixth in the table after eight games and, as Metalist Kharkiv and Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk grow, are arguably not even Ukraine’s second side (after Shakhtar Donetsk) any longer – it is the third school that seems most reasonable.” Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
Roy Hodgson and England keen to make a point in Ukraine
“Ever since he unwisely admitted to thoroughly enjoying the dull scoreless draw between Manchester United and Chelsea last month, Roy Hodgson has been castigated for his innate conservatism. The England manager sets his sides up not to be beaten, it has been said, values a draw almost as much as a win and rarely attacks with sufficient aggression to deliver a knockout.” Guardian
