For Dynamo Kyiv, the position of striker was very important for a long time. Their own school could not produce a forward for the first team. Probably the last one was Artem Milevskyi. And then there was no one for more than 10 years.
Matvii Ponomarenko. Photo by Yurii YurievWe bought some strikers, but no one left a mark. The Dynamo school has produced two Ballon d'Or winners - Oleg Blokhin and Andriy Shevchenko. It is very important that these traditions continue.
Vladyslav Vanat is now the top scorer in the Ukrainian league. The last time Dynamo won was in the 2015/16 season, when Andriy Yarmolenko scored 15 goals. Before that, Artem Milevskyi won the scoring competition in the 2009/10 season. We can see that not every year Dynamo players become the top scorers in the UPL. It's great that Vanat won the title this season. And he won it with a big margin. I understand that his performance is not the highest. If he had converted his chances, he would have scored more goals. I am sure that next season will be the same.
Dynamo's Matvey Ponomarenko also won the competition for the youth championship's top scorer. Motya came first by a significant margin. There was simply no better striker in the U-19. I am very glad that Matvey was even able to score for the first team.
The issue of a striker has ceased to be relevant for Dynamo. We have Vanat. Ponomarenko has a great prospect. Sooner or later, Vlad will be sold. A replacement is already being prepared. Perhaps Ponomarenko is inferior to Supryaga or Benito in terms of experience, but he definitely has more prospects.
I am very glad that the Dynamo school has started training interesting and competitive strikers again. It's a pity that we lost Bogdan Popov and Dmitry Bogdanov to the war. These players were born in 2007. The former proved himself in Poland and now defends the colours of Empoli's youth teams, while Bogdanov has already made his debut for Dynamo Dresden's first team. Both of them defend the colours of the Ukrainian youth team at the Euros.
Serhii Tyshchenko
