FIFA agent Igor Kryvenko spoke about former footballer Roman Maksymyuk, who went missing during the war near Pokrovsk.
Roman Maksymyuk— I noticed this football player back in the mid-90s when he was with "Prykarpattya". Due to various circumstances, Roman did not play in the main squad of the Ivano-Frankivsk team at that time, mostly coming on as a substitute. However, I believed in him. I believed because I saw in him a very high football potential. I have my own view on football. So it turned out that I managed to see in Maksymyuk those qualities that, in my opinion, could make him a player of a high level. Which he actually became. At that time, one of the experienced representatives of the legendary coaching staff of Dnipro from the 80s, Leonid Koltun, was working as a scout at Zenit in St. Petersburg and didn’t even know who Roman Maksymyuk was. Perhaps he still wouldn't have known if I hadn’t recommended the player to him based on our good relationship.
During the break in the championship, when the Ukraine national team was playing against Croatia in the playoffs for the 1998 World Cup, Maksymyuk came for a week for a trial in Petersburg, where he demonstrated his best qualities — both in training and in the game. In a "friendly match", he outplayed one of his compatriots, Serhiy Popov, on the flank. This immediately caught the attention of the coaching staff headed by Anatoliy Byshovets, and Zenit signed a contract with Roman. This was still in November 1997, when there were many transfers of players from Ukraine to Russia and from Russia to Ukraine, and no one could even think about the war in their wildest nightmares.
At Zenit, Ukrainian players were held in high regard: Oleksandr Babiy, Oleksandr Horskhov, Hennadiy Popovych played there, and the team captain was Yuriy Vernydub. Maksymyuk harmoniously fit into the new team, immediately becoming a key player. He played brilliantly there for two seasons and was even invited to the Ukraine national team. He also caught the attention of leading clubs. Roman had a choice — to respond to the offer from Yuriy Syomin from Moscow's Lokomotiv or to move to Kyiv's Dynamo. He didn’t think long: he chose Dynamo. And subsequently, this person remained true to his Motherland. And not only on the football field but also on the fields of war. Personally, I live in hope that Roman Maksymyuk is alive, and his disappearance is related to falling into Russian captivity, — said Kryvenko.
