Ukraine forward Artem Dovbyk recently scored a double against Alaves and has scored 11 goals in La Liga in total. Only Borja Major and Jude Bellingham, for whom Real Madrid paid more than €100 million in the summer, have more. "Girona is leading the way in La Liga. In addition to Dovbyk, former Dynamo player Viktor Tsygankov plays a leading role.
Andrii Lunin is still winning the competition against Kepa Arrizabalaga in the Real Madrid goal. The Ukrainian goalkeeper has already played 9 matches for Madrid this season.
Among our Spaniards, only Roman Yaremchuk cannot yet boast of success. However, the Ukrainian striker plays for Valencia, a rather high-profile club.
Viktor TsygankovIn England, we have five players at once - Mykhailo Mudryk at Chelsea, Vitaliy Mykolenko at Everton, Oleksandr Zinchenko at Arsenal, Ilya Zabarnyi at Bournemouth and Yegor Yarmolyuk at Brentford. Mykolenko has been in tremendous form. He has already scored two goals this season. Zabarnyi lacks stability, but his overall progress is huge and obvious. Yarmolyuk, at the age of 19, is playing at the Premier League level and doesn't spoil the pot. In the last round, he started to train the current world champion goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez. Zinchenko plays key roles at Arsenal. Perhaps Mudryk had slightly higher expectations. But playing for Chelsea is also quite a status.
We have two players in Italy. Ruslan Malinowski had a bit of a difficult start at Genoa, but now he is playing key roles. Viktor Kovalenko recently had a successful period at Empoli.
Anatolii Trubin is playing steadily at Benfica. Everyone understands that this is just a springboard. Very soon he will be in the leading European championship.
There are always a lot of scouts at Croatian league games. Because a Croatian footballer is a sign of class. A certain brand for which Europeans are willing to pay good money. The war and the economic situation have led to more Ukrainians going to play in Europe. A Ukrainian footballer becomes no less of a brand than a Croatian. If Europeans see that a representative of a country has played successfully in a strong club, they start to monitor the country from which he came. Today, more than one team from Europe and agency wants to have their own scouting office. Because thanks to the success of our legionnaires, the brand of a Ukrainian footballer is becoming famous in football. Everyone wants to find their own Dovbyk, Mykolenko, Zabarnyi.
To be honest, we have already overtaken the Croats. They have two players in the Premier League - Ivan Perisic and Joscho Guardiola. The former is injured and does not play. He was supposed to return to Hajduk in the summer. The injury prevented him from doing so. The latter joined Manchester City for a lot of money only in the summer. We have five. It turns out that the class of our players is higher, if rich English clubs buy Ukrainians, not Croats.
La Liga leader Girona has two Ukrainians. Plus, Lunin is playing for Real Madrid this season. Valencia has Yaremchuk. Croatia boasts grandfathers Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic. One is 38 and the other is 35. It is not a given that they will stay in Spain next season. Each has a contract until the summer. Osasuna also has a good forward, Ante Budimir, but he is also 32 years old.
Of course, we are very much behind in Italy and especially Germany. The Croats are actively working in these countries and have good agency connections. It's equally important that children of immigrants of Croatian descent are born in Germany, who then choose their parents' national teams. We will eventually catch up with them here. My hopes are for Artem Stepanov and Oleksandr Petrenko of Bayer Leverkusen and Danylo Krevesun of Borussia Dortmund.
My good friend, former Croatia goalkeeping coach Tomislav Rogic, said that the Croats have trained players for Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Manchester City, and Real Madrid, but they cannot train a goalkeeper of a really high level. We now have Lunin at Real Madrid and Trubin at Benfica. We have overtaken a country that has been working for export all its life in just two years... Today, Ukraine has become the same brand in terms of player training.
In the short term, there will only be more Ukrainians in the leading championships. Not all of them have left. Compared to the Croats, we have a serious advantage. "Dinamo Zagreb can sell Martin Baturin for a lot in the summer. The price tag is over 20 million. Somewhere around 25. Actually, that's all... There are no more particularly big transfers to the leading championships in the country. I don't think Georgy Sudakov is worse than Baturina in terms of potential. "Shakhtar want a lot of money for him. There are also Volodymyr Brazhko, Artem Bondarenko, Danylo Sikan, and in the future - Nazar Voloshyn, Vladyslav Vanat, Ilya Kvasnytsia, Bohdan Slyubyk, Marko Sapuga, Vlad Dubinchak, Kostiantyn Vivcharenko, Kyrylo Fesyun. Young players will appear every season.
The level of the Croatian championship is no higher than ours. In fact, only Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk can sell a player to a leading league for good money, because they have a brand. But it's also difficult for them to really train a strong player who can play at a high level right away. That's why they use third clubs. This season, two players left Zagreb for the Netherlands. "Ajax and Feyenoord paid almost 30 million euros for Josip Šutalo and Luka Ivaniusic. Potentially, they will play in the world's leading leagues in two years. Earlier, Lovro Mayer took this path when he became a player of Rennes. Interest on transfers will fall in the Croatian capital. There is no need to be afraid. For the same Sudakov, a conditional Ajax would be a great chance to prepare more for the leading championships.
Now that the level of the Ukrainian championship has fallen, it is very important not to strive for short-term results, but to try to build a system. To rely on our own youth. It is very important for Dynamo to bend the line of its own pupils, to improve the work of its own school.
I am sure that after the Victory, European investors will come to Ukraine and buy clubs. People will be doing business, not confirming their status. A Ukrainian footballer is a brand. It is cheaper to bring him up than to buy him for tens of millions. In Croatia, the practice of foreign investment works. "Gorica was under Lithuanian ownership. They wanted to develop a business model. "Osijek lives on Hungarian money. It's just very difficult when Dinamo Zagreb dominates the youth selection.
As paradoxical as it may sound, the best team in Ukraine today will not be the one that wins gold medals and the Cup. It will be the team that prepares the most players for the strongest league in the world, the Ukrainian Premier League. Dynamo has two direct transfers, while Shakhtar has one. This is the way things are now. Borussia Dortmund is hardly really chasing the Bundesliga Silver Salad Bowl. Rather, it is important for them to find a new Erling Holland, Jude Bellingham. Every year, prepare a player for 100 million euros. There will be someone to buy him.
The departure of players to Europe does not make the championship stronger, but it definitely makes the national team stronger. The Croats have been medallists at the last two World Cups. We have already seen that we can play successfully against England and Italy. Perhaps the time will soon come for the national team to win medals at continental tournaments as well?
Sergiy Tyshchenko
