Ukraine National Football Team 1992 - Overview

Overview

The 1992 season was the first season for the Ukraine national football team. The Federation, particularly its president Bannykov had organized first game with Hungary on the small stadium near the border with the country of the opponents. The field on which the game was organized could have been counted as the neutral considering the fact that Uzhhorod has a big population of native Hungarians.

The Federation hired Viktor Prokopenko to prepare team for the World Cup of 1994. Mr. Bannykov tried to get a qualification spot for the national team. By the end of the year it was clear that there is no hope for that, which reflected upon the motivation of the players. Plus numerous players that were born in Ukraine already started to defect to the Russian national football team camp such as Kamchelskis, Onopko, Yuran, and others. Other plays simply chose not to participate for the Ukrainian side such as Lyutyi and Yaremchuk. Prokopenko only received a consent from six former Soviet international players (they are outlined in bold in the list below), others only had some experience on the youth level if any at all.

After losing another game to Hungary Prokopenko was fired and was replaced by his assistance as interim coaches Pavlov and Tkachenko. The Ukrainian internationals lost that game on the last minutes having a relative advantage throughout the game. That loss is particularly logical after somewhat surprisingly bleak performance against the national team of USA, they played before it. After the game in the USA could also be observed a withdrawal of some key players from the team's roster.

The substituted coaches did manage not to loose against the national team of the neighboring Belarus. Tkachenko at that time successfully coached Metalist leading it to the finals of the Cup, while Pavlov has recommended himself well by managing Tavriya Simferopol in the Soviet First League. By the end of the year a lot of footballers decided to try their skills for the more successful Russian national football team that completely adopted all the achievements of its Soviet predecessor. Those player switched their citizenship in hope to be included on the team that would make to the finals in the United States, such as Andrei Kanchelskis, Viktor Onopko, and others. Even after playing for the already FIFA-admitted national team (Ukraine) up to three games the FIFA allowed those players to be included to the Russia's World Cup roster (Yuri Nikiforov, Akhrik Tsveiba, Oleg Salenko). The goal of Yuri Hudymenko eventually played a bad joke on him as he was not allowed to change the sides due to that fact. Proven to be a great strikes in the dawn of the 90's, after transferring to Dynamo Moscow he successfully disappeared from the football horizon.

Although being recognized already in 1992 for strange reasons the administration of Ukrainian Football Federation had failed to secure recognition and submit the required documentation in time to compete in the 1994 FIFA World Cup qualification and was only adopted by FIFA in late 1994.

A total of 39 players participated in the national team from 12 Premier League teams and two more players from Rangers. The most players to the national team delegated Dynamo Kyiv nine with Chornomorets and Dnipro seven a piece.