National team coach Mykhailo Fomenko on Sept. 29 called up four new players for the next two 2016 European soccer championship qualifier matches who didn’t appear in the debut loss to Slovakia.
The blue-and-yellows play Belarus away on Oct. 9 in Borisov and
Macedonia on Oct. 12 at home in Lviv.
New this time to the 26-man squad are Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk’s
star winger Yevhen Konoplyanka who is back from injury and his teammate Yevhen
Seleznyov replaces Oleksandr Hladkiv of Shakhtar Donetsk up front. Dynamo Kyiv’s
Serhiy Sydorchuk and Metalist Kharkiv’s Serhiy Bolbat also are new faces in
midfield who didn’t play in the 1-0 loss on Sept. 8 in Kyiv.
Dnipro and Shakhtar each are contributing six players,
followed by Dynamo with five. In the back are four Shakhtar defenders, but
Dynamo’s Yevhen Khacheridi may start in the back center along with his traditional
counterpart Yaroslav Rakitsky of Shkakhtar.
Expect Dynamo’s Andriy Yarmolenko to stride along the right flank
and Konoplyanka along the left with possibly Seleznyov or his Dnipro teammate Roman
Zozulya playing up front.
The 24-team Euro 2016 tournament kicks off in June 2016 to
be hosted by France.
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.
Ukraine
squad:
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, (Dynamo
Kyiv), Artem Fedetsky (Dnipro)
Midfielders: Oleh Husiev, Andriy Yarmolenko, Roman
Bezus, Serhiy Sydorchuk (all Dynamo), Ruslan Rotan, Yevhen Konoplyanka (both
Dnipro), Mykola Moroziuk (Metalurg Donetsk), Taras Stepanenko (Shakhtar), Edmar
Halovsky, Serhiy Bolbat (both Metalist Kharkiv), Dmytro Khomchenovskyi (Zorya
Luhansk), Kyrylo Kovalchuk (Chornomorets Odesa), Anatoliy Tymoshchuk (Zenit
Saint Petersburg, Russia)
Forwards: Roman Zozulya, Yevhen Seleznyov (both
Dnipro), Volodymyr Homeniuk (Metalist), Pylyp Budkivskyi (Zorya).
Group С Euro 2016
qualifying group
№ | Team | Matches | Wins | Draws | Losses | Goals | Points |
1 | Spain | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5:1 | 3 |
2 | Slovakia | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1:0 | 3 |
3 | Belarus | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1:1 | 1 |
4 | Luxembourg | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1:1 | 1 |
5 | Ukraine | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0:1 | 0 |
6 | Macedonia | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1:5 | 0 |
Kyiv
Post editor Mark Rachkevych can be reached at[email protected].
