Football Scotland are now represented by a Kiev-born Ukrainian. Here, midfielder Maksym Kucheryavyi, who is on loan to third division side Falkirk this season, has been linked with St Johnstone.
Maxim KucheryavyiThe 21-year-old revealed that he could have ended up at Dynamo Kiev or Shakhtar Donetsk at a young age, but deliberately chose a different path.
"I started playing football when I was six years old. At first I was engaged in a regular school, in the first grade. Then, when I was seven, I went to a section of Children's and Youth Sports School-15 in Kyiv, where I trained until I graduated, until I was 17.
Later "Dynamo" and "Shakhtar" were interested in me, but I always wanted to play abroad, where there are more opportunities and a higher level of football. When I was a kid, Dynamo and Shakhtar never sold many of their Ukrainian players abroad. Now it has started to emerge, but still it is not a frequent occurrence. Therefore, I thought that it would be more rational to go abroad without Dynamo or Shakhtar.
When I was 14, I went to a trial with Spanish Villarreal. But I could not stay there, because there are European laws that do not allow moving at that age, unless the family has a non-football reason to stay in the country.
And later, Scottish club Harts head coach Craig Levin came to Kiev for the 2018 Champions League final between Real Madrid and Liverpool, watched me and suggested I try my hand in Scotland.
At first I trained with Harts, travelling constantly between Ukraine and Scotland. Until I turned 18, I could not sign a contract with a Scottish club. And when I turned 18, there was a coronavirus pandemic. Levin, who had invited me to Hearts, was sacked at the time. "St Johnstone offered me a three-year contract. I joined the team in September 2020," Ukrainian Football quotes Kucheryavyi as saying.
