Former Ukrainian national team forward Ivan Getsko talked about the friendly match against Hungary (1:3), in which the first goal in the history of the national team was scored.
Ivan Getsko"Frankly, the attitude of football officials to the national team was not much better in 1992. The country had been independent for a few months and had already started its domestic league. And in April the FFU recalled that it would not be a bad idea to have a main team match as well.
The preparations for the friendly game, which took place on April 29, were minimal. The coach Viktor Prokopenko received almost no support. In Kyiv we practised on sawdust, then on asphalt.
I was sure that in the game with Hungarians I would appear in the starting line-up, but, alas, I started it on the bench. I was young and hot, so I took offense at the coach. When Viktor Evgenievich asked me to come on as a sub, I even intentionally dragged out the time, could not find my boots and fiddled with the laces for a long time.
In the final half an hour, when I got on the pitch, both teams had chances. Even I had two unused chances. Alas, the Hungarians converted their chances and scored three times. Only in the 90th minute, I poked the ball into the net from a free-kick of 20 metres.
At first, we didn't think much of the game. But after a while, I realised that I had made history. Even in the crosswords I used to come across the question "Author of the first goal for the Ukraine national team".
I realized I did not have any video of that fateful moment. So the search began. Once, some unknown voice on the phone offered to buy the tape for USD 2,000. It was a lot of money for the 1990s and I refused.
The football authorities did not pay much attention to the national team in the first years of independence. It was strange that the first ever match was played in the Avangard stadium with the capacity of only 13,000 fans and not in Kyiv or another city with population of one million. Rumour has it that this was convenient for the visitors, as Uzhhorod is not far from the Hungarian border.
The football federation had no money for training camps or for travel by the main team. While we were getting ready, a lot of our players took Russian citizenship. Had Kanchelskis, Juran, Tsymbalar, Onopko, Nikiforov and others played for the Ukraine national team, such a team could have made a name for itself in the 90s.
Now I am working in youth football. Alas, after the start of the war, I had three times fewer students. Many have gone abroad, the best boys are already enrolled in European football academies. Unfortunately, the war will give us a two- or three-year gap, if not more," Getsko said.
