Mykola Neseniuk: "Only those who are not afraid of pain and do not know fear play successfully in goal"

The well-known journalist Mykola Neseniuk shared his thoughts on the specifics of a football goalkeeper's career and spoke about the goalkeeper of the Kyiv Dynamo U-19 team, Vyacheslav Surkis.

"My school friend, with whom I had been playing ball since I was seven years old, became a goalkeeper at the age of eleven. In this position, he was unrivalled neither among his peers nor among his seniors, not to mention his juniors.

I tried to do the same and asked to join the goalkeeping training. But even falling on the mat in the gym was painful for me. And when I had to fall on the field covered with fine gravel where we trained, I finally and forever stopped my career as a goalkeeper. To understand my decision, try to fall on a hard surface yourself, just like football goalkeepers do. They do it dozens of times during every training session.

It was then, rejoicing at the success of my classmate, who was getting better and better in goal, that I realised that only those who are not afraid of pain and do not know fear can play successfully in goal. Meanwhile, my friend started playing for the "masters team". Thanks to this, he quickly got an apartment, bought a car, and regularly travelled abroad, from where he brought me discs of my favourite band, The Rolling Stones, which were unavailable at the time.

As for me, a young journalist, I had to survive on a penny salary and fees that were barely enough to live on. I was not offended or jealous, knowing the price of my goalkeeper friend, who once had his jaw broken by the opposing forwards.

Slava Surkis has everything that my childhood friend used to earn by risking his health, and much more. At eighteen, the son of Grigory Surkis could easily lead a life of "major" somewhere in Monaco, London or elsewhere, like most children of Ukrainian millionaires. But he chose football. This is normal - almost every boy at a certain age enrols in a football school only to leave it after learning the cost of even basic football skills. That's why I was not surprised to see Hryhoriy Surkis' son among the pupils of Dynamo's school for the first time. Why is he worse than the others? Why not give him a try?

When I found out a few years later that Slavko hadn't given up, I decided to ask the coaches if they had any additional problems with him. The coaches replied that they did have problems - Hryhoriy Surkis' son demanded that he be trained extra. And I had to think about how to refuse him. I remembered my childhood and my training with goalkeepers, which I quickly gave up because I wanted to score goals, not bruise my sides on the hard ground...

Nowadays, Slava Surkis plays for Dynamo's youth team. I won't comment on his game and future prospects. I want to evaluate something else - a quite decent and adult attitude to life, which he showed in what seems to be his first major interview. I think that regardless of how Slavko's football fate develops in the future, no one will be ashamed of him. Neither his parents nor anyone else," Neseniuk wrote on his Facebook page.