Ukrainian Football Reaping Rewards of Foreign Talent

Artem Chobanian

Today it is impossible to watch Ukrainian football without noticing the increasing amount of foreign players playing in the Vyscha Liga. Since the beginning of the millennium more and more teams have been inclined to buy ‘legionaries’ from abroad rather than try to find and develop home-based players. Admittedly the poor football infrastructure does not allow young talents to grow rapidly and become successful players like Shevchenko or Voronin. But that is the problem of the PFL and the Ukrainian Sport and Youth Committee.
We should mention that Ukrainian football has improved a lot with the new Brazilian, African and Eastern European (Slav) players that have appeared throughout the league. It is also clear that not all clubs can afford to buy first class foreign players, but that is for the better. Football in Ukraine is still essentially ‘Ukrainian’ with a slight mixture of other nationalities that bring diversity and interest to the game.
It is clear that the best imports are at Shakhtar Donestk and Dynamo Kyiv. Many have become considered ‘natives’ given the amount of time they have been at their clubs’ and the fans love them as much as the Ukrainian footballers. There are though, some foreign players who cope better in Ukraine than others, as it is in every league, so let’s take a look at some of them and how they are coping with their career and life abroad.

Evaeverson Lemos da Silva, or simply Brandao was born in Sao Paolo, Brazil, on the 16th June, 1980. Height 189cm, weight 78kg. In Brazil played for Gremio, Uniao Bandeirante and Sao Caetano. Clocked up 41 matches and scored 32 goals. At Shakhtar from 2002. Champion of Ukraine in 2004/2005 and 2005/2006. Vice-champion in 2002/2003, 2003/2004 and 2006/2007. Ukrainian Cup holder in 2004. Finalist in the Ukrainian Cup in 2003 and 2005. All in all played 144 matches in Ukraine and scored more than 80 goals. Played 46 games in the European Champions League and UEFA Cup, scored 14 goals. 

The fans often compare Brandao to Liverpool striker Peter Crouch, who is so awkward sometimes that he cannot find the proper way to use his limbs. But in contrast to Crouch, Brandao makes silly mistakes when he does not pass to a free player or just fails to read the play and misses the pass. Like team-mate Gladkyi says, “Every time I pass to Brandao I want to run after the ball to make sure he will really score”. But Gladkyi is jesting here. His fellow team-mates think Brandao is a very good footballer. He never misses from the penalty spot, almost always wins the ball in the air and runs like a madman to tackle opponents. Brandao is very emotional. During a training session in Spain, he was expelled from the main team for his quarrel with a team-mate. Moreover, he was fined $50,000. Then he argued with Luchescu about his position on the pitch and asked the coach to let him go to Brazil to his friend’s wedding right before a very important match against Chernomorets. This is Brandao. He is capable of causing conflict, is emotional and even eccentric, but with all the new players that appear at Shakhtar every year, the club and the fans still have faith in him as a player who can improve even further and get better and better each year.

Dario Srna was born in Metkovic, Croatia on 1 May 1982. His height is 182cm, weight 78kg. Played for Hajduk Split. Champion of Croatia in 2001, vice-champion in 2002, 2003. Croatian Cup winner in 2003. Played 82 matches in the Croatian championship and cup, scored 7 goals. One of the major players in the national team: has 52 matches and 15 goals to his name. Was bought by Shakhtar Donetsk in 2003. Champion of Ukraine in 2004/2005 and 2005/2006. Vice-champion in 2002/2003 and 2006/2007. Ukraine Cup holder in 2004. Played 121 games in the Ukrainian Vyscha Liga and cup, scored 12 goals. Participated in the Champions League and UEFA Cup, has 54 matches & 1 goal as Shakhtar player.

From the beginning of this season Dario Srna became Shakhtar’s captain. It’s hard to believe he wasn’t the captain in previous years. At first, Dario was playing too nervously: his raids along the flanks were very often unsuccessful and useless, because he couldn’t make his passes and crosses count. But with time, he learnt to control himself and his game became mature. Now he is a confident and charismatic leader, a playmaker who builds up the almost all of Shakhtar’s attacks. Along with Fernandino, Dario Srna leads the game and supplies the forwards with so many passes that sometimes it’s impossible to see if there are other footballers on the pitch except Srna.

He is very sociable and charming. For the Ukrainians, his Croatian accent sounds extremely appealing and the female fans consider him to be the sexiest player at Shakhtar. Despite his calm temper, he can be very strict with his fellow players and also with the referees as well. After the many controversial incidents in the Tavria vs Shakhtar match, he became very furious and said that if he ever came to leave the Ukrainian Liga, it would only be because of poor refereeing. All Shakhtar fans hope this will never happen.

Luchescu trusts Srna very much, never doubts his decisions and often changes his position, thus altering the whole playing scheme around Dario and causing the team to move on the field like a wheel around an axle. Dario Srna likes Shakhtar, wants to play on in Ukraine and that makes him very popular among the players, managers and fans. As Luchescu put it once, “If or when I leave Shakhtar to be a coach of another club, I would like to take Dario with me, because he is my captain as well as the team’s”.

Carlos Rodrigues Correa was born in Limeira, Brazil on 29th December, 1980. Height 176cm, weight 73kg. Played 74 matches in Brasileirão — Brazilian Serie A — for Palmeiras FC, scored 7 goals. In 2006 was transferred to Dynamo Kyiv. Played more than 40 matches in the Ukrainian Vyscha Liga, scored 7 times. Also played for Dynamo in the Champions League seasons 2006/2007 and 2007/2008, scored 1 goal. Champion of Ukraine in 2007 and Ukraine Cup winner the same year.
Carlos Correa appeared at Dynamo when the majority of players were preparing for the World Cup. The managers could not find a place for him then, but after the first training session, they were surprised to see how well Correa moved on the pitch and how brilliant his passes were. Starting from his first official game, against Chernomorets, Correa proved to be indispensible for the team. Before his arrival there had been lots of players who took the free kicks and corners in a match. Within two weeks everything changed. Since the autumn 2006 Correa has been the one who is in charge of the free kicks and corners. He is very good at making passes and this shows in the fact that at Palmeiras he had been the best provider of assists for two successive seasons. And now at Dynamo he has further developed his skills.
Correa says he is lucky and happy to play in Ukraine, because nowadays the Ukrainian Liga is stronger than it was three or four years ago. The major problem for him was the language, but he had a good tutor and now can give interviews with a little Russian and Ukrainian. Like all Brazilians moving to Ukraine, he was afraid of the frost and snow at first, but says he liked both the first time he experienced them.

Carlos is extremely disciplined and he likes to engage in discussions after matches with the coach about his good and bad passes or positions he should have occupied at particular points in the game. In Ukraine, in contrast to Brazil, he doesn’t have much attention from the fans — no hugs and kisses, no screams and autograph rushes, everything’s different, but Correa enjoys it. He says he has learnt to sense the support of the fans in the stadium and got used to positive and negative remarks that he reads on all kinds of Dynamo forums on the Net.
Referring to one of coach Semin’s early press-conferences, there are certain players in Dynamo who, he thinks, will always be in the team no matter who the coach is. And Carlos Correa is one of them.