The Ukrainian school of soccer coaching has had an excellent reputation for several decades. Ukraine’s soccer experts and their teams have won the highest awards during world and European soccer championships. Valeriy Lobanovsky occupies a special place among the most outstanding coaches in the post-Soviet space. In the 1970s he not only put together Kyiv’s fantastic Dynamo team, but also introduced a new coaching theory that is still in use today.
Another Kyivan, Anatoliy Byshovets, helped the Soviet national team win gold medals during the 1988 Olympic Games. Oleh Blokhin, a representative of the following generation of Ukrainian soccer coaches, returned our national team to the world elite last year.
Working closely with the international soccer community, Ukrainian soccer coaches received an opportunity to improve their qualifications with a special training program. Those who completed it were awarded UEFA’s official Pro Diplomas. Now Ukrainian coaches can receive this diploma in Ukraine.
On April 4 the first group of Ukrainian soccer coaches received their diplomas. Addressing the audience during the awards ceremony, Hryhorii Surkis, the president of the Ukrainian Soccer Federation, noted that “today’s historic event will give a fresh impetus to Ukrainian soccer.”
Among those awarded diplomas attesting to their highest professional skill by European standards were 14 Merited Coaches of Ukraine and 12 Merited Masters of Sports, including the coaches of the Ukrainian national team Oleh Blokhin, Andriy Bal, and Semen Altman; the coaches of the junior national team Oleksiy Mykhailychenko and Oleksandr Ishchenko; the coaches of the major league teams Ivan Balan, Viacheslav Hrozny, Anatoliy Demianenko, Oleksandr Zavarov, Vitaliy Kvartsiany, Anatoliy Konkov, Hennadiy Lytovchenko, Myron Markevych, Oleh Protasov, and Mykhailo Fomenko; the sports directors of Ukraine’s leading clubs Leonid Buriak and Viktor Prokopenko; and the celebrated major league veterans Oleh Luzhny, Pavlo Yakovenko, Oleksandr Sevidov, and Oleksandr Spiridon.
The Pro Diploma training program at the Ukrainian Soccer Federation featured the participation of a number of foreign soccer experts, among them Heinz Werner, ex-coach of the German national team, UEFA instructing coaches Piotr Maranda (Poland), Zdenek Sivek (Czech Republic), and soccer scholars, like Professors Angel Shishkov (Bulgaria), Mark Godik, Andrei Leksakov, Valeriy Seluyanov, Valentin Golomazov, and Boris Chirva (Russia); California-based professor Oleksandr Likholet, and others.
Ukraine is the first post-Soviet country to obtain the right to issue UEFA Pro Diplomas, further proof of the continuing systematic efforts of the national soccer federation to raise the qualifications of its soccer coaches. There is little doubt that this will have a positive effect on the performance of our teams that are being trained by Ukrainian specialists.
