Oleksandr Petrakov's former assistant for Ukraine Vitaliy Levchenko has analysed the football journey of one of Ukraine's most promising players, the Italian La Spezia midfielder Viktor Kovalenko, who finds himself at a crossroads.
Vitaly Levchenko- Why was Kovalenko tearing it up at youth level like Mkhitaryan, scoring a lot, being quite active, and now he resembles a shadow of himself?
- The level of Serie A is high. There are a lot of talented players there. Vitya falls short of their level. In Ukraine, when he was young, he looked very promising.
When Kovalenko played in Petrakov's U-20 World Cup 2015, he performed well and as far as I know Arsenal from London wanted to sign him. Then Akhmetov did not let the lad go. Somewhere there may be a psychological problem, lack of confidence in their own abilities, which prevents him to play at a high level.
- In public Vitya is always calm, measured, somewhat like an introvert. How did he feel with the other guys in the national team? Besedin, Yaremchuk, Kharatin and Sobol play leading roles there.
- He is a fairly balanced guy, never showed his negativity. I noticed when he was not in the starting line-up, he was very frustrated. If somewhere a player is not physically ready to play, tactically does not fit in the family - it is normal. Perhaps the supporting role for La Spezia brings about a similar feeling. He is a very ambitious guy, somewhere, maybe nervous, psychologically unable to withstand the pressure that is in the team.
Everything lies in psychology. If a player is confident and knows how to act in different situations, there will be no problems. Somewhere, perhaps, it is necessary to have more individual conversations, to work with mentality. Perhaps in "La Spezia" they do not pay much time to this aspect, and he withdrew into himself.
- Kovalenko had no conflicts with Petrakov or similar misunderstandings?
- There were no conflicts at the time. All the guys looked at Vasilievich with their mouths open. It was a friendly team. Our lads were mature in terms of their level of play.
- At the start of his career Vitya played attacking midfielder, and then started appearing below number eight. Could it be argued that he still hasn't found his place on the pitch?
- The example of Zinchenko and Kovalenko is instructive in terms of the environment in which you find yourself. Sasha worked on a daily basis with the players of extra class, and at Shakhtar, the Ukrainians were not coddled the way they were with the Brazilians. This is one of the main factors, but we are not with him to see the situation objectively.
- Does Vitya have time to reveal himself in adult football?
- Maybe he needs to change the team. Find a coach who will trust him. I do not think that Vitya is satisfied with his current situation at La Spezia.
- Will a return to Shakhtar help Vitya restart his career?
- It would be ideal, but will he want to return to Ukraine now? He has everything to become a leader at the current Shakhtar: the environment, the coach, who understands the players perfectly. Everything depends on him.
Oleksandr Karpenko
