Before we start talking about the Ukrainian national team and Andro in Shevchenko's story, there is another man with whom the twin stars must be introduced: Sergiy Rebrov, who is two years older than Sheva.In the mid-1990s, when Sheva had just been promoted by the Kiev generator to the first army, Sergiy Rebrov was already the golden boy of Ukraine.
In 1997, Valery Lobanovski went three times to take charge of the Kiev Dynamos again, and he brought the Devil's Training Method and the 16-degree 'Uphill of Death' to the players with it. Every night during training, when the players returned to their rooms, they were so tired that they just wanted to put them to bed. There is only one exception: the girl Rebrov, who is ready to develop a new world.
To Andriy In Shevchenko's opinion, he and Sergiy Rebrov have a heart to heart and are on exactly the same wavelength, but immersed in the world of radio, it is as if he is in another, parallel world that is more open and cosmopolitan than his soccer world in Kiev.
Sergiy Rebrov's room is like a scientist's secret laboratory, full of strange devices, buttons and maps. When night falls, Sergiy Rebrov immediately goes into Rebrov 'communication mode': he usually speaks Ukrainian on the training ground, and communicates with his colleagues from all over the world in English in the world of radio. Strangers from all over the world randomly appear in the frequency tuning, and sergiy Rebrov always finds the right topic. Later, the slash footballer also captured sounds from the North Pole via radio and won prizes in European and world-class radio communication competitions.
Already a Champions League front-runner, Sheva defected to AC Milan in 1999 and collected the Golden Boot in his rookie season in the Boxing League. A year later, Sergiy Rebrov chose to follow in the footsteps of Sheva's travels by joining Tottenham, but his career abroad was clearly not as successful as his predecessor's.
Sergiy Rebrov returned to the Kiev generator in 2005 and hung his shoes high in 2009 (when Sheva also chose to end his 10-year travel career.) In 2012, when the Sheva leader performed at the Euros, the 'Last Dance', when Sweden scored twice, Sergiy Rebrov had previously worked as an assistant coach for the national team.
The two men's fates would continue to intertwine. After retirement Sheva first worked with the once Sergiyy like Rebrov, who served as assistant coach of the national team and took over from coach Anatoly Timofeevich Fomenko after the Euro 2016 fiasco and worked for five years. And Sergiy Rebrov continues to coach cosmopolitan ideals in Saudi Arabia, Hungary and the United Arab Emirates.
Sergiy Rebrov returned to Ukraine last summer to take over the mantle of national team manager left by Sheva two years ago. Six months later, Sheva was elected president of the Ukrainian Football Federation.
In 2022, Ukraine was invaded by Russia. When the war broke out, many Ukrainians lost their homes and the Ukrainian national team lost their home stadium. They had to move their home stadium to western Poland and the Tarczynski Stadium in Wroclaw for Iceland's extra Europa League play-offs. Even before that, the city was home to a large number of Ukrainian workers, about 10 percent of the total population. Now, that percentage has naturally become higher. On March 26, 2024, 30,000 Ukrainian fans entered the stadium to help the national team in the final mile.
That's when Sergiy Rebrov, on the sidelines, received radio waves from Germany: Wrocław, also known as Breslau, was a historical and economic city in eastern Germany until World War II. In other words, the city is not far from Germany.
Ukraine can enter another international tournament hosted by Germany when they come back from two consecutive 2-1 defeats.Sergiy Rebrov celebrates on the sidelines while Sheva enters the team locker room after the game. This is Ukraine's fourth consecutive Europa League appearance. Sheva has been a player, assistant coach, coach and president of the Football Association during those four games.
In terms of squad strength, Ukraine is stronger than Boch and Iceland, who beat Israel, but leading a team to advance in such a brutal format is still a great achievement.
For Ukrainian soccer, the 'play-offs' this means a nightmare of infinite repetition.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine became a FIFA freshman in 1992 and naturally did not qualify for the 1994 World Cup outing in the United States. Beginning in 1998, France ~ 2022, Cada played seven out-of-conference matches in Ukraine. With the exception of 2006, when they finished first in their group, and Russia 2018, when they finished third in Group I. The remaining five times they finished second in their group, they needed to compete in a brutal tournament through play-offs, but all five of Ukraine's matches were in ink.
Drawing Croatsia for the 1998 World Cup in France and meeting Germany for the 2002 World Cup in South Korea, Ukraine was unintentionally outclassed by far superior opponents.
