Football in Ukraine

Football in Ukraine is the number one sport. Its heritage is from Soviet football, particularly of the 1970s and 1980s. With annexation of some territories during World War II, parts of western Ukraine were already involved in professional football in neighboring countries.

The major football events in Ukraine are supervised by the Football Federation of Ukraine, which was organized in 1991 to replace the Soviet Football Federation of Ukrainian SSR created in the 1920s. There are several types of football: professional male and female football, amateur male and female football, youth leagues and children's competitions, football veterans and beach football, indoor competition and separate competitions for students and military personnel. Ukraine fields a great number of different national teams for various types of international competitions including continental and world qualifications, Universiades, youth competitions, and international competitions for beach and indoor football.

The Ukraine national team, representing an independent nation, has qualified for the FIFA World Cup once, in 2006, where they reached the quarter-finals led by the former Soviet football star player Oleh Blokhin. Ukraine also has several younger squads that were a little more successful, yielding several new promising footballers.

On the club level the Ukrainian championship has primarily developed out of the Soviet competitions. With the unification of Ukraine in 1939-1940, in the newly acquired territories all but the Soviet clubs were dissolved or partially integrated into Soviet competitions, including selected players from Pogon Lwow's (Michał Matyas) and ST "Ukraina's" (Karlo Miklyosh). Among the notable Soviet footballers of that period Makar Honcharenko and goalkeeper Mykola Trusevych deserve mention. Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk are among the big European clubs nowadays. Dynamo Kyiv traces its fame from the Soviet times as they won the European Cup Winners Cup twice in 1975 and 1986. In 1975 Dynamo extended its success into the UEFA Super Cup as well. Among the famous players to come out of Ukraine were Oleh Blokhin and Andriy Shevchenko. The legendary coach Valeri Lobanovski led Dynamo Kiev to their European Cup victories as well as coaching the former Soviet and later on the Ukraine national football team: He is a Ukrainian football hero.