Ukraine head coach, Andriy Shevchenko has named Manchester City defender Oleksandr Zinchenko and West Ham United’s Andriy Yarmolenko in his squad for the September 10 international friendly encounter against the Super Eagles of Nigeria at the Dnipro Arena in Kyiv, reports Completesports.com.
The squad will also face Lithuania in an European Championship qualifier three days before the game against the Super Eagles.
Overall, Shevchenko listed 24 players in the squad with four players placed on standby for both games.
Schalke O4 of Germany midfielder, Yevhen Konoplyanka, Shakhtar Donetsk’s Junior Moraes and highly rated goalkeeper, Andriy Pyatov are some of the big names in the squad.
Shevchenko’s 24-Man Squad
GOALKEEPERS
Andriy Pyatov (Shakhtar Donetsk), Denys Boyko (Dynamo Kyiv), Andriy Lunin (Valladolid)
DEFENDERS
Serhiy Kryvtso ( Shakhtar Donetsk ) Mykola Matviyenko (Shakhtar Donetsk) Serhiy Bolbat (Shakhtar Donetsk), Nikita Burda (Dyamo Kiev) Vitaliy Mykolenko (Dynamo Kiev) Oleksandr Karavaev ( Dynamo Kyiv), Ihor Plastun(Gent) Eduard Sobol (Bruges)
MIDFIELDERS
Yevhen Konoplyanka (Schalke, Germany), Andriy Yarmolenko (West Ham, England), Ruslan Malinowski (Atalanta, Italy), Oleksandr Zinchenko (Manchester City, England), Roman Bezus (Gent, Belgium), Maryan Shved (Celtic, Scotland), Viktor Tsyhankov, Vladimir Shepelev, Vitaliy Buyalskyi(all Dynamo Kyiv), Taras Stepanenko (Shakhtar Donetsk) , Marlos ( Shakhtar Donetsk).
FORWARDS: Roman Yaremchuk (Gent, Belgium), Junior Moraes (Shakhtar Donetsk).
Standby
Yevhen Shakhov, Sergey Sidorchuk, Nikolay Shaparenko and Artem Besedin .
By Adeboye Amosu
7 Comments
European teams are always favoured in FIFA rankings, this squad is not stronger than our own yet ranked 25th.
Can you give us data or stats that show they arent stronger. Or are you just being sentimental like the average black man usually is….?
That’s how some people claim Nigeria has the best talents in Africa, yet no Nigerian player has won the AFOTY in over a decade and a half…and do not command the magnitude of transfer fees like their counterparts from other African countries.
Don’t you see their defence line up? With players mostly playing in Ukraine while ours are in 5 top European clubs, they’re only better in goal keeping and a little better in midfield but we are better in striking areas.
So it is names and clubs they play for that FIFA uses in ranking teams abi…? Don’t start performing and beating teams on the pitch.
We Nigerians really need to learn lessons in humility and respect for others on and off the pitch. We just right teams off as if we invented the game of football. We claim we are better than the likes of Guinea, CIV, DRC etc but a look at their team lists show they’ve also got players playing in the same calibre of clubs and leagues our players are featuring in and I tend to wonder….so what’s all the braggadocio about…?
We have defenders playing in leganes, Udinese, Brighton, Paderborn and someone feels we are far better off than another team who has got players from seasoned campaigners in UCL and Europa league like Shakhtar and Dynamo Kiev. Orisirisi
what has your ‘better in striking area’ done for us lately?
Shall we allow the players to do the talking on the pitch? One thing we’ve perpetually ignored is our poor facilities. Even the average low-level European country has excellent sporting facility. Yet we beat our chest that we can beat them. And our boys who give their best inspite of the paucity of resources are mercilessly stripped and taken to the public showers. Can we compare our league with those of European countries?
Go through most European cities and you see worker renovating facilities; in Nigeria the politicians are dividing the spoil and engaging in primitive accumulation of our common resources.
Guys no mind @Goal. I like the rest of you are at a loss on why we boast too much, where as Dre pointed out none of our current players are being nominated or even considered for any player’s award. All we are are “potentials”. Why some feel we are already world beaters beats me. As pointed our we have to do our talking on the pitch.