Background
This game was organized almost by accident. The president of FFU was on vacation with his wife in Budapest. Walking the streets of the city, they ended up by the doors to the Hungarian Football Federation and decided to enter. With the help of his wife who knew English, they agreed to play a game between the two national teams.
At first they come up with the date of April 28, but because of Viktor Bannykov birthday it was agreed to postpone it to April 29. The place also was changed from the original at Olympic NSC in Kyiv to the Avanhard in Uzhhorod, because of financial difficulties. Those difficulties also contributed to the hardship of gathering the national team of the FFU because the Federation could not afford to pay a plane ticket of some of the footballers. On the other hand, Hungary also did not seem to be such a difficult opponent finishing in the fourth place of Group 3 during the UEFA Euro 1992 qualifying event. However the Hungarians managed to pull a surprising draw during the game in Moscow with József Kiprich being the major hero of the Mighty Magyars at that time. Hungarians did manage to bring their optimal team roster to the game in Uzhhorod, the central stadium of which was filled as never before. Emerich Jenei in his career as a coach effectively led his teams in the games against the Soviet national football team and had some world-class experience qualifying to the 1990 World Cup in Italy.
The FFU wanted to see Valery Lobanovskiy as the head coach, but he was under the contract with UAE national football team and the Ukrainian federation could not afford to pay cancellation of his contract. So, from the three candidates who agreed to pledge their services, the first coach of the Ukrainian national football team was chosen Viktor Prokopenko coaching FC Chornomorets Odessa. Chornomorets at that time finished fourth in the Soviet Top League 1991 season and was the top representative of the Ukrainian football. Other two candidates were Anatoliy Puzach (FC Dynamo Kyiv) and Valery Yaremchenko (FC Shakhtar Donetsk). Prokopenko's assistants were chosen Mykola Pavlov (Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk) and Leonid Tkachenko (Metalist Kharkiv).
Read more about this topic: Ukraine V Hungary (29 April 1992)
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