Ukraine national soccer team coach Mykhailo Fomenko called up seven Shakhtar Donetsk, six Dynamo Kyiv, and five Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk players, as well as five debutantes for the 28-man squad that will play Slovakia at home in their first 2016 European soccer championship qualifier match on Sept. 8.
Shakhtar defender Ivan Ordets has returned after being on
loan and forward Oleksandr Hladyi is back from injury – he was capped eight
times for the national team in 2007-2008. Injured are star winger Yevhen
Konoplyanka of Dnipro and his teammate Vitaliy Mandziuk. Out of form at Dnipro
is Yevhen Seleznyov. Debuting for Ukraine is Yevhen Shakhov for Dnipro, while
Dynamo defender Yevhen Khacheridi has recovered from injury.
Three Kharkiv Metalist players were also called up,
including Brazil-born Edmar Halovsky. Poltava Vorskla’s lone player on the
national team is debutante midfielder Artem Hromov.
Ukraine is in qualifying Group C together with Belarus,
Spain, Luxembourg, Macedonia and Slovakia. The nine group
winners, the nine group runners-up and the best third-placed side will qualify
directly for the final tournament. The eight remaining third-placed teams will
contest play-offs to determine the last four qualifiers for the finals.
The 24-team tournament will kick off in June 2016 and is
hosted by France.
Ukraine
national soccer team:
Goalkeepers: Andriy Pyatov (Shakhtar Donetsk), Denys
Boiko («Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk), Dmytro Bezotosnyi (Chornomorets Odesa)
Defenders: Vyacheslav Shevchuk, Oleksandr Kucher, Yaroslav Rakytskyi,
Ivan Ordets (all Shakhtar), Yevhen Khacheridi, Yevhen
Makarenko (both Dynamo Kyiv), Artem Fedetsky (Dnipro)
Midfielders: Oleh Husiev, Andriy Yarmolenko, Denys Harmash, Roman Besus
(all Dynamo), Ruslan Rotan, Yevhen Shakhov (both Dnipro), Mykola Moroziuk
(Metalurg Donetsk), Taras Stepanenko (Shakhtar), Edmar Halovsky, Pavlo Rebenok
(both Metalist Kharkiv), Dmytro Khomchenovskyi (Zorya Luhansk), Kyrylo
Kovalchuk (Chornomorets) Artem Hromov (Vorskla Poltava), Anatoliy Tymoshchuk
(Zenit Saint Petersburg, Russia)
Forwards: Roman Zozulya (Dnipro) Oleksandr Hladkyiv
(Shakhtar), Volodymyr Homeniuk (Metalist), Pylyp Budkivskyi (Zorya).
Kyiv Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].
