Ukraine national football team 1992
| Season | 1992 |
|---|---|
| Manager | Viktor Prokopenko |
| Assistant manager |
Mykola Pavlov Leonid Tkachenko |
| Home stadium | Avanhard Stadium, Uzhhorod |
| Matches played | 4 |
| Wins | 0 |
| Draws | 2 |
| Losses | 2 |
| Goals scored | 3 (0.75 per match) |
| Goals against | 6 |
| Top goalscorer | 1 – Yuriy Maksymov, Ivan Hetsko, Yuriy Hudymenko |
| Players | 39 |
| Goalscorers | 3 |
| Debutants | everyone |
| Highest scoring | Ukraine – Hungary 1:3 (April 29) |
| Longest winless run | 4 |
| Longest losing run | 1 |
| Highest attendance | 13,000 Ukraine – Hungary (April 29) |
| Lowest attendance | 10,000 Hungary – Ukraine (August 26) Belarus – Ukraine (October 28) |
| Average attendance | 11,204 |
|
1993 →
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| players retired from national team this season |
Ukraine national football team 1992 was the very first composed team that represented the now independent Ukraine. Note that it was not the very first to represent Ukraine, though. The country while being part of the Soviet Union used to play several games mostly against the Turkish nationals back 1930s. Those games, however, later were scratched and went into the oblivion.
The 1992 season was the first season for the Ukraine national football team. The Federation, particularly its president Bannykov had organized first game with Hungary on the small stadium near the border with the country of the opponents. The field on which the game was organized could have been counted as the neutral considering the fact that Uzhhorod has a big population of native Hungarians.
The Federation hired Viktor Prokopenko to prepare team for the World Cup of 1994. Bannykov tried to get a qualification spot for the national team. By the end of the year it was clear that there was no hope for that, which reflected upon the motivation of the players. Plus numerous players that were born in Ukraine already started to defect to the Russian national football team camp such as Kamchelskis, Onopko, Yuran, and others. Other plays simply chose not to participate for the Ukrainian side such as Lyutyi and Yaremchuk. Prokopenko only received a consent from six former Soviet international players (they are outlined in bold in the list below), others only had some experience on the youth level if any at all.
After losing another game to Hungary Prokopenko was fired and was replaced by his assistance as interim coaches Pavlov and Tkachenko. The Ukrainian internationals lost that game on the last minutes having a relative advantage throughout the game. That loss is particularly logical after somewhat surprisingly bleak performance against the national team of USA, they played before it. After the game in the USA could also be observed a withdrawal of some key players from the team's roster.
The substituted coaches did not lose against the national team of the neighboring Belarus. Tkachenko at that time successfully coached Metalist leading it to the finals of the Cup, while Pavlov has recommended himself well by managing Tavriya Simferopol in the Soviet First League. By the end of the year many footballers decided to try their skills for the more successful Russian national football team that completely adopted all the achievements of its Soviet predecessor. Those players switched their citizenship in hope to be included on the team that would make to the finals in the United States, such as Andrei Kanchelskis, Viktor Onopko, and others. Even after playing for the already FIFA-admitted national team (Ukraine) up to three games the FIFA allowed those players to be included to the Russia's World Cup roster (Yuri Nikiforov, Akhrik Tsveiba, Oleg Salenko). The goal of Yuri Hudymenko eventually played a bad joke on him as he was not allowed to change the sides due to that. Proven to be a great strikes in the dawn of the 1990s, after transferring to Dynamo Moscow he successfully disappeared from the football horizon.
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Wikipedia