How representatives of Central Asia played in the championship of Ukraine
Unusual transfer designed by the Ukrainian champion under the very curtain of the winter window. An orange and black T-shirt, together with Dario Srna, was shown to the cameras by the flank midfielder of the youth team of Tajikistan. Exotic, however! For a long time there were no players from Central Asia in our championship.
First, let’s define a region. Central Asia is the collective name of the five Central Asian post-Soviet states. In addition to Tajikistan, they include (among the authoritative sources, we highlight Encyclopædia Britannica) states rhyming with it: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, as well as the Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan).
The region is vast. But in the championships of Ukraine for more than 30 years of independent national football, due to established traditions, it was represented very poorly. Somehow, the scouting of our clubs was not set in that direction (with rare exceptions), notable footballers were more willing to move to a more congenial (Asia after all) Russia.
However, in Ukrainian football, Central Asia, despite the small number of personnel representation (in comparison even with other post-Soviet countries), still managed to leave a mark. Ukrainian fields had a chance to be trampled by non-ordinary individuals from the Asian territories of the former “prison of peoples”. And one of these personalities was the compatriot of the newcomer Gornyakov, the full namesake of the odious politician, the ex-governor of the Kharkiv region and the Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs – Arsen Avakov!
Not a minister, but a scorer
Arsen Georgievich Avakov was born in Dushanbe in 1971. He managed to light up in the allied tower as part of the Pamirs. In the course of the 92/93 season, he moved to Ukraine – the then president Tempa Nishnianidze gathered an ambitious international in Shepetovka.
Avakov’s heyday came in the 1994/95 season, when he was already a player in Zaporozhye Torpedo. There he, a flank defender, was transferred by coach Nadein to the attack. And Avakov instantly thanked – scored 21 goals and became the top scorer of the championshipahead of Antyukhin, Leonenko and Gaidash!
The Tajik football player made up a shock pair of attacks with the future Turkmen Bondarenko (more on him below). But he did not stay long in Zaporozhye and Ukraine – in the middle of the next season he moved to the Russian championship. He performed there without much success and tied up at the age of 30.
Another more or less prominent representative of Tajikistan – Vitaly Levchenko, who played for the double of Dynamo and (for six years) for CSKA Kiev. He was born in the Tajik SSR, and did not refuse an invitation to the corresponding team – he played for it without much success in the second half of the 90s. However, the scorer Avakov did not play much more for Tajikistan.
Having played enough, Levchenko trained in Ukraine for many years, then moved to his homeland. He worked as an assistant in his native team. Since the summer of 2022, he has been the head coach of the Uzbek Neftchi. A couple of weeks ago, having moved from Georgia, the recent leader of Metallist-1925, Yuri Batyushin, became his ward.
Happiness, health and creative representatives of Uzbekistan
Of the entire Central Asian region, Uzbek football players were most widely represented in the Major League / UPL. Of course, a separate place should be allocated for Maxim Alexandrovich Shatskikhwho, as he came to Kyiv from the former Koenigsberg to replace Shevchenko himself, stayed in our football for a good twenty years!
A decade in the attack of the Kyiv club. Five-time champion and so on. Over three hundred matches in total. Under a hundred goals in the championship (twice top scorer), 23 – in European competition. Then there were years in the capital’s Arsenal and the final chord of the aging master in the role of Goverla’s playmaker. After completing his career, he worked at the Dynamo Academy, was part of Khatskevich’s headquarters. Now he trains at home – he has already managed to lead Pakhtakor to the championship!
Shatskikh is the top scorer in the history of his national team (True, Shomurodov is about to overtake him). Four times he was recognized as the best football player in Uzbekistan. In 2005, he took second place in the list of the best football players in Asia. Twice with his team he was close to the World Cup, but it was insulting to lose the continental junction. Became a semi-finalist of the Asian Cup-2011.
Of the other 13 Uzbek football players who appeared in the championships of Ukraine, they are worthy of mention Vitaly Denisov And Sanjar Tursunov.
The left-back plowed the flank of the Dnepropetrovsk (then) Dnieper for six years. And only severe competition in the face of Strinich provoked the long-haired runner to leave Ukraine. I moved to the championship of the neighboring non-state, which then (January 2013) still managed to pretend to be moderately adequate. Spent a few good years in the locomotive. Now Vitaly, who recently turned 36, is ending his career in the championship of his native country.
For a year, the younger Tursunov did not manage to cross paths with Denisov in the UPL. In Vorskla, a skilled winger (could be on both flanks, but more often on the right) appeared at the beginning of 2014 and stayed for three years (with a break). 75 matches in total, 20 effective actions – a very good indicator. Today, like the aforementioned compatriot, he is playing out in the Super League of Uzbekistan.
Kazakhs have been, it didn’t work out with the Kazakhs
The most famous Kazakh (more precisely, a Kazakhstani!) in Ukrainian football is Dmitry Nepogodov. A typical example of a naturalized player; Below we recall a number of similar cases.
The future goalkeeper of the Kazakhstan national team was born in Kyiv. He didn’t manage to get into Dynamo, he didn’t seem to want to get into Shakhtar (he called Prokopenko), since he already had an invitation from Marseilles in his hands. For several years he played for the second team of the French grand, even occasionally got into the application, but he did not wait for Lunin’s chance. And he returned to Ukraine. He appeared in Metallurg, played normally already in Vorskla in the middle of the 2000s.
Since 2017, Nepogodov has been in the championship of Kazakhstan. I took trophies with not the last local clubs – Tobol, Astana. The local federation quickly fussed and issued citizenship to the goalkeeper. He managed to play 13 matches for his new homeland (based on the entire qualifying round for Euro 2020). Since the summer of last year, a veteran (recently turned 35) has been a player in Chernomorets. Plays in the base, like without any complaints.
Of all the other players with a Kazakh passport, more or less known Sergei Zhunenko And Vitaly Abramov (player of the romantic miner Prokopenko at the turn of the century). They, as you can easily guess, are not Kazakhs in the ethnic sense, but were born on the territory of the Kazakh SSR. However, the team of the Asian country left almost no trace.
Oh yeah worth mentioning Anton Shokh And Evgenia Yarovenko – football players, known from the Dnieper of the 80s, but held even earlier, in Almaty Kairat. Their career flourished during the Soviet era, therefore, they did not reach the Kazakhstan national team (again, by birthright). Although theoretically they could. In the 90s, both managed to play in independent Ukraine. Yarovenko – more. Shoh – quite a bit.
The same birthright allowed him to play for the national team of Kyrgyzstan Vitaly Kobzar, which oldfags can remember from Vorskla at the turn of the century. And also a little on Obolon zero. More than 200 matches in the Major League, after all. He was born in the city of Frunze (now Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital). He played a little bit for the national team of the corresponding country in the early nineties. Like, for example, Alexander Agarinthe legend of the Cherkassy Dnieper of the 90s and the Akhtyrsky Oilman of the 2000s.
With the Kyrgyz in Ukrainian football, it was quite sparse. Unlike representatives of Turkmenistan – as many as 12 surnames! But this is only at first glance.
“New Turkmens” for one tournament
A wonderful story happened in the fall of 1998. Viktor Pozhechevsky, who had just done a good job with Vorskla (historic entry into the elite and immediately sensational third place), headed the national team of Turkmenistan. And, without thinking twice, he called six football players from Ukraine into it!
Read also: From Golovko to Petrakov. Ukrainian coaches who worked with the national teams of other countries
Defender received an invitation to take Turkmen citizenship and play for the new national team Konstantin Sosenkomidfielder Andrey Zavialovforward Roman Bondarenko (13 seasons in Zaporozhye Torpedo, 231 matches and 54 goals in the Higher League of Ukraine), as well as three former wards of the head coach – Andrey Khomin (he died at the age of 31 – a car accident …), Igor Kislov And Sergei Chuichenko. All of them are experienced people who have a good legacy in Ukrainian football (everyone has at least a hundred matches in the elite division of our country).
The Ukrainian coach invited compatriots to the, to put it mildly, weak Central Asian team for a reason, but to participate in the Asian Games, a completely official and status competition that took place in Thailand from November to December 1998. For example, the Iranian team that won that tournament appeared in a prime combination – with Daei, Hashemyan, Mahdavikya, Karimi, Bagheri, that is, all the main stars of that time!
And after all, this is not the case of Nepogodov, who, before naturalization, played at least for some time in Kazakhstan. How did a lightning-fast change of citizenship for half a dozen footballers become possible with an instant opportunity to play for a new team (moreover, Khomin was played for the national team of Ukraine in the Euro-96 selection)? And like this. At the snap of your fingers. In those romantic years, such issues were resolved somehow easier.
There was another ex-Ukrainian in that team, Dmitry Khomukha, memorable for Metallist, but for several years he has played for Russian clubs. With him, everything is on point: he was born in Ashgabat, and accepted the invitation of his historical homeland at the request of his children’s coach.
Turkmenistan performed with dignity at that continental tournament. I won the group at the first stage, and it was precisely due to the Ukrainian landing. Zavyalov and Bondarenko scored unanswered goals against Thailand, and the first place was played in the battle with Korea. The Turkmens burned after the break 0:2, but organized a super comeback with the help of Kislov (double) and Agaev (later he will play a little in Ukraine).
Pozhechevsky’s team went through the second stage without defeat: they beat India (Kislov’s winning goal), saved draws with North Korea (Bondarenko) and Uzbekistan. But in the quarter-finals, a big (0:3) burnt out to China, which eventually took the silver. An honorable hit in the top 8 teams in Asia is generally not bad.
In the application of that team, among others, was Kurbangeldy Durdyevfive years later, briefly intersected in Metallist with Chuichenko, as well as other compatriots – Berdyev And Urazov. It was such a strange time in the Kharkov club, which fell into the First League for a year and was just getting ready to be cleared by Markevich.
This is where the story of the Ukrainians in the national team of Turkmenistan ended – the above-mentioned “Pozhechevsky’s six” did not play for the Asian team again. Of the rest of the Turkmens, only a few words deserve Guvanchmukhamed Ovekovwho managed to change four Ukrainian clubs of the Major League in six years.
Dear Max? At least Arsene!
Finally, a few words about Khusrave Toirov. He is only 18, he was born in August 2004. Main position – left winger. In the spring of 2020, at the age of 15 (!!!), he made his debut in the Higher League of Tajikistan for Lokomotiv Pamir from Dushanbe. Since the summer of last year – in Atyrau, Kazakhstan. Played 11 matches (two in the base), gave two assists. He has been called up to the senior national team since 2021, but so far he has not entered the field. He runs with might and main for the Tajik U-20 team.
It is clear that this is hardly a replacement for Mudrik “here and now”. But in the future… Why not dream? In any case, let’s wish the young Tajik a career in Ukraine, albeit not as glorious as that of the Shatskys, but at least no less bright than that of Avakov (a football player) and Tursunov.
Source: Sportarena
I’m Todderic Kirkman, a journalist and author for athletistic. I specialize in covering all news related to sports, ranging from basketball to football and everything in between. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, I have become an invaluable asset to my team. My ambition is to bring the most up-to-date information on sports topics around the world.
