Dovbyk's first coach: "We lived poorly. One room, 17 square metres, shared kitchen, shared toilet"

The first coach of the striker of the national team of Ukraine and Spanish "Girona" Artem Dovbyk, Oleksii Blokha told us how he first met his pupil.

- "I was still working part-time as a physical education teacher at the 10th school in Cherkasy. I was walking through the stadium and saw a boy playing with a ball. He was tall, thin and handsome. I asked him: "Do you train somewhere?" He replied: "No, uncle, I train on my own". He spends half a day training, playing with the ball. We went up to the third floor. His parents were very simple, they lived on the third floor of a dormitory, one room, 17 square metres. In the room were his dad, mum, Artem and his sister. They lived in poverty. The kitchen was shared, the toilet was shared. The house was a shambles.

I more or less started paying attention to him. He trained with me for three years, from seven to ten. And then he moved to the Olympic reserve school. There he played for the regional championship, the Ukrainian championship, and was noticed. Then, at the age of 17, he joined Cherkasy Dnipro and made his debut in the PFL. He scored everywhere, he always liked to score. And then it went further - the Danish champion, the Danish Cup with Midtjylland, the Moldovan Cup at Zorya (Balti). That's my fate," Blokha said in an interview withUV.