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RE: 🥴 Splitting Personalities (💭, ⚽, 🏆)
I had high hopes for Shevchenko when he signed for Chelsea which he didn't ever quite live up to - that didn't take anything away from what he did at AC Milan. Who's your local team and are they the team you support?
Earlier, I wanted to invite you to create a community about football.
I considered this once with a specific focus on English football (i.e. no posts about Ronaldo (at the time) or Messi) but decided it wasn't worth it with 2 communities directly or indirectly already covering the subject.
No Ukrainian player has shown himself in English football. A striking example of this is Andriy Yarmolenko, who is now sitting on the bench at West Ham United. Neither Shevchenko nor Yarmolenko are bad players. Yarmolenko comes and plays for the national team, scores goals, holds the entire flank and makes assists. When he returns to the club, he sits on the bench again.
I think the English championship is not suitable for our players. Maybe this championship has a much higher class, but Shevchenko was a high-class player. Maybe in English football there is more physical struggle, maybe long passes for which you have to fight. I don't know, but Ukrainians can't play in England.
Ukrainian football is not experiencing the best of times now. After the start of the war, Ukraine's GDP fell sharply. The number of sponsors has decreased, some clubs have voluntarily dropped out of the league, some have ceased to exist.
When I talked about local teams, I meant all Ukrainian ones. I follow their international matches, I also watch the matches of the Ukrainian championship. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian championship has now become much weaker.
There is also a football team in my city. It previously played in the second football league. Then there was a very successful season, the team won a ticket to the first league. At the same time, the team from a neighboring but larger city, flew to the second league. The authorities of the former city stated that they could not have a worse team than the city of Kalush, offered the sponsor better conditions and simply changed teams in the cities. Our team went to represent a bigger city, and theirs is ours.
I went to the stadium for every match of our team. After the exchange, I was no longer in any matches at the stadium.
Subsequently, funding stopped and now the team from Kalush is playing in the regional championship.
I thought Yarmolenko was fantastic at the Euros and I thought that would pave the way to more game time at West Ham. All he gets is to play in the cup now which isn't befitting of a player of his quality. He needs to leave in my opinion.
The English game is still quite physical but the biggest difference with the rest of the world is speed. The ball's moved so quickly, you have little time to think and because of the quality in the league, if you make a mistake, you're usually punished. Which also means that if you don't take your chances, you don't win. It's been a while since a team succeeded playing the Long Ball - Leicester still do to some degree and maybe Burnley but in the main, it's high tempo, high press. In the Lower Leagues, it's bit more direct but the pitches are so good now, there's no need to hoof it up the pitch.
I think Shakhtar Donetsk are still held in high regard and Dynamo Kyiv were good against Barcelona.
I've heard similar stories about all business in the Ukraine - it's about as corrupt as you can get. Nobody likes the corruption but if you don't do it, you don't get anything. I remember somebody (from Ukraine) telling me that every business wants it to stop (the only people who gain are government officials), in the oil industry I think... but they were all so scared that 1 company would make a bribe and win the contract, they all kept doing it. I guess football's no different. Which is sad.
I completely agree.
When you said about the speed of the game in the English league, I realized that's it. We do not have such speeds. Even in Italy or Spain, Ukrainian players can play, because there half the match the players just pass the ball to each other.
Shakhtar Donetsk and Dynamo Kyiv have been playing worse in recent seasons due to reduced competition in the domestic championship. Although the budget, for example, Shakhtar Donetsk is not less than the top European clubs.
Corruption is a painful topic in Ukraine. Society has long demanded change, people have even died for it. But change takes a long time because of fierce resistance.
Significant shifts towards reducing corruption are already visible in the life of the average person. But when it comes to big business, everything changes dramatically.
From the little I know, one of the reason Shakhtar Donetsk have done so well in the past is because they're got so much money and can afford to pay ridiculous wages. Like you say - by killing off the competition domestically, they're not ready to compete in Europe - as we see in Scotland with Rangers and Celtic (who used to do well in Europe).
It must've been 10 years ago that I had that conversation and there was a resignation in the person I was talking to. Stopping it would obviously be more successful if it were the big businesses that lead the way but they're the ones that have the most to lose (especially on the international stage where other (western) countries are less likely to "play the game") - As seen in Russia's and Qatar's successful World Cup "campaigns".
It's much easier to punish a man on the street for bribery than a massive corporation.
But like you say, change takes time and hopefully your homeland's heading in the right direction.
Shakhtar Donetsk is the richest football club in Ukraine. And this despite the fact that Ukraine has lost Donetsk for 7 years. All because the owner of Shakhtar is the richest Ukrainian, who earned his money in a completely unfair way.
This shows that corruption cannot be completely eradicated in any country. But you can greatly reduce its level. Anti-corruption mechanisms have already been set up in my country, but they are not working properly. However, we have a strong civil society, which reveals the facts of corruption and raises a scandal in the press. This is still the most effective mechanism.
From the little I've read, this is confused in itself - we still recognise it as part of the Ukraine but my knowledge of the subject won't even be close to yours!
I hope things work with the fight against corruption but it's everywhere in various forms. The press itself has its own biases and I wouldn't be surprised if the bits that don't get printed are far worse than what does!
That's true.