In January 2019, FootballHub published an article by Sasha Loboda about a Ukrainian in the system of Barcelona's La Masia school, a very young Fedir Kolomiets.
Fedir Kolomiets. Photo by O. NovykIn the autumn of 2023, Volodymyr Yezerskyi, the then coach of the Ukrainian national team born in 2007, sent me a profile and video of Kolomiets, who played for one of the teams in Barcelona. Volodymyr Ivanovych considered Kolomiets as a candidate for the Ukrainian national team of his age. He was impressed by the qualities of this defender.
In 2024, Kolomiets became a player of the Dynamo youth team. Fedir plays as a right centre-back. He has good anthropometry, knows how to work with the ball, act under pressure, has a good first pass, and is strong in martial arts. The guy has the potential to grow into a good player. It will take some time to understand whether Fedir will be able to use this potential. After all, the training system of Spanish and Ukrainian football is significantly different.
This season, Kolomiets has already played for the U-19 team against his peers from Dnipro-1, when the fate of the match was decided. Fedir came on in the 80th minute instead of central midfielder David Bilyi. He was shortlisted for the matches against Kolos and Polissia.
The team captain, Nazar Balaba, born in 2005, is currently playing at right centre-back. He is not yet in the first team. Therefore, he has every chance of going on loan in the summer. Since 2006, there has been Vladyslav Zakharchenko, who this season is starting to get playing practice at the U-19 level. Vlad was the leading player of the Ukrainian national team born in 2006 when they played the qualifiers for Euro U-17. Last season he played for Zorya's youth team.
Demian Tretiak was born in 2007. In the summer, he moved from Dinamo Zagreb. He is currently playing for the U-17 and the U-19 second teams in the First League of the Youth Championship. Tretiak is a leading player and defender of the U-17 national team of Ukraine, which will soon play at the Euros. He has played two qualifiers. He was rumoured to be linked with Manchester United. The choice of players in this position is huge. But competition hasn't hurt anyone yet. Perhaps someone will be tried in the support area, but there is a player of 2006, Danylo Ishchenko, and of 2007, Volodymyr Ozymai.
There is also a nuance that if Kolomiets were extremely talented, he would hardly leave Spain for Ukraine. He did not stay at the Barcelona Academy for long. Then there were lower-level clubs. If there had been a chance to get a good team in Spain, he would hardly have come to Kyiv. He was not called up to the 2007 national team of Ukraine despite the search for a central defender.
All this is theory and assumptions. Only game practice will really show everything. Next season, it will be clear how much talent Kolomiets has and whether he will be able to compete for the Dynamo first team in the future.
Serhii Tyshchenko
