Football news

Former Ukraine national team and Lviv Karpaty player Ihor Khudobiak recalled the circumstances under which he decided to move to Russian Rostov.

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The traitor to Ukraine Anatoliy Tymoshchuk answered the question of local propagandists about the dominance of Brazilians in Zenit, where he serves as an assistant.

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Legendary forward and UAF President Andriy Shevchenko spoke in an interview with NV about his attitude towards Ukrainian athletes who continue to play and live in Russia.

- I do not make any contacts. Russia is the aggressor, and all those who support it are enemies for me. There is no point in talking about them. We are moving forward, we have made our choice. This is the main thing. I recently saw Vashchuk at a football match. I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who serve in the Armed Forces. There are also those who have died. This is a huge pain and devastation. And at the same time, I have great respect for those who went to defend Ukraine," said Andriy Mykolayovych.

Former Ukraine defender Artem Fedetskyi told us whether it is worth returning defender Ivan Ordets, who is on loan from German side Bochum, to the national team of Ukraine.

- A stable player for Bochum, he beat Bayern Munich? So what? We need to talk about human qualities here, not football qualities. Ordets should be forgotten forever. Let him beat the world team, we don't need to remember him.

His challenge will destroy the atmosphere in the national team. I think Rebrov himself understands this perfectly well. There is no need to even mention Ordets. He is from Volnovakha, which was destroyed by the Russians, and his contract still belongs to Dynamo Moscow, and he has not clearly expressed his position on the war. Such people should be forgotten. Let him live his own life, which suits him. Ukraine definitely does not need him," Sport-express quotes Fedetsky as saying.

Girona forward Artem Dovbyk commented to Tribuna on the information that he will be able to take part in the match against Real Madrid in the 24th round of the Spanish championship on 10 February.

"It's a secret," Dovbyk said.

Due to a knee injury, the footballer missed the 0-0 match with Real Sociedad on 3 February. This season, he has scored 14 goals and made 8 assists in 24 matches.

The International Football Federation (FIFA) has ordered Norwegian footballer Mathias Norman to pay compensation to Russian club Rostov for the termination of his contract. The Norwegian fled Russia after a drone attack on Moscow.

This was reported by Nettavisen with reference to the FIFA decision, which is at the disposal of the publication. According to the source, Mathias must pay Rostov 2.9 million euros in compensation.

The Norwegian insisted on his innocence, calling what happened to him in Russia force majeure. In addition, he said he was concerned about his safety, and Rostov did not engage in dialogue and ignored him. However, most of the judges in the trial sided with the Russian club.

The source adds that if Norman is unable to pay the €2.9 million in compensation on his own, this obligation will fall on Saudi Arabian Al-Raed, which lured the player. The footballer was given 45 days to pay the compensation. If he ignores this, he may be suspended from football, and Al Raed will face sanctions from FIFA in the form of a ban on player registration.

Andrey Arshavin, deputy general director of Zenit St Petersburg, has compared his club with Shakhtar Donetsk in the context of the number of Brazilian legionnaires brought into the team.

"10 years ago I told the owner of the club that we should do like Shakhtar. And, in principle, we have now become similar to Shakhtar.

Naturally, in terms of philosophy I would like us to be like Barcelona. But for this we need the club academy to produce players. And for this, we need not only to invest money in the academy, but also to instil the soul and philosophy," Russian media quoted Arshavin as saying.

The so-called "deputy chairman of the defence committee" of the illegal State Duma, Alexei Zhuravlev, has accused local football players of betrayal.

- I don't recall any cases of any of our footballers giving even part of their fabulous salaries to the Russian army. Maybe it's such a treacherous environment in general, because we don't hear any other opinions from the football guard," the member of the "parliament" said.

It seems that the flight of football players from the terrorist state will soon intensify considerably.

So-called "Russian footballers" have been left without "winter" red balls due to the withdrawal of the main sports brands, local propagandists report, citing official RPL information.

An explanation had to be given after participants in the match between Spartak and Baltika in Kaliningrad were forced to play in the snow with a standardised ball that was not visible on the TV broadcast.

The league's press office explained that the clubs had voted to use balls from Nike, which had been purchased through parallel (without the manufacturer's consent) imports. But Nike does not produce red balls for free sale and makes them only to order.

Before the game against Wales, Armenia's head coach Alexander Petrakov answered journalists' questions about the "non-call" of Khoren Bayramyan from Russian side Rostov at a pre-match press conference.

- "I did call him up. He came to the first training camp, said he felt uncomfortable and couldn't play, and then left the team. Three days later, he played 90 minutes for Rostov. Then he came to the second training camp and allegedly got injured again. We scheduled an MRI scan for the morning, but he said he didn't even want to have it done. He wanted to leave the national team and booked a ticket for the first flight to Rostov. I wished him good luck in life," Petrakov said.

In return, Bayramyan accused Petrakov of lying and hypocrisy. However, the fans of the Armenian national team are on the side of the head coach.

A Twitter user with the nickname Football Kentron writes: "For years, Bayramyan rejected invitations from the Armenian national team, waiting for a call-up to the Russian national team. Only at the age of 28 did he agree to a backup with Armenia."

It will be recalled that the Armenian national team still has a chance of qualifying for Euro 2024, but for this, Petrakov's team needs to beat the national teams of Wales and Croatia.

Former Russian national team player Andrei Arshavin, who now serves as Zenit's deputy general director, has spoken out about the matches of the terrorist state's "national" under-team.

- I am not interested in watching matches from a sporting point of view - and it doesn't matter who we play against. I have no interest from a sporting point of view. But don't get me wrong. I am asked, and in this case I express my personal opinion," Arshavin told local propagandists.

CSKA Moscow midfielder Maxim Mukhin recently injured the cruciate ligament of his knee.

For some reason, the player and the club decided to entrust the treatment of the valuable organ not to the "best in the world" Russian medicine, but to the enemy German aesthetics. But that was not the case. The athlete of the team that calls itself the Army team was denied a German visa. Everyone in CSKA is outraged, and they believe that a terrible mistake has been made, which was told to local propagandists by Vladimir Fedotov, the coach of the Army men.