Today, on December 20 at the House of Football, a distinguished coach from Ukraine and former national team coach for Ukrainian futsal, Gennadiy Lysenchuk, who recently celebrated his 75th birthday, received an honorary award.

From the hands of the President of the Ukrainian Football Association and UEFA Executive Committee member Andriy Pavelka, Gennadiy Lysenchuk was awarded the UAF Presidential Order "Legend of Ukrainian Football."

Photo by the press service of the UFA

"It's nice that they remember me. They remember that I led the association of mini-football for 20 years, and was head coach of the national teams of Ukraine for 18 years. That I brought back 11 medals from world championships and European championships - three gold, three silver, and five bronze," said Gennadiy Lysenchuk. "Overall, both myself and all the boys who were in the team are proud of these achievements. Because we made Ukraine famous! When we won the bronze medal at the World Championship in Spain in 1996, then the matches were shown on television. When we returned, everyone said: 'We couldn't get into bars to watch your performance.' This was nice.

We were the only ones who played a draw with Brazil - 2:2 - in Spain back in 1996. They beat everyone else, including the Spaniards in the final.

The Brazilians usually won against us - they are a strong team. But once we did win - 1:0. They were shocked...

We also made it to the finals of the World Championship in 2008, held in Brazil. There's much to remember and these are pleasant memories...

It's nice that the UFA leadership remembers those successes as well, and I have become one of the legends of Ukrainian football. I will be proud of this and look forward to new achievements for Ukraine both in regular football and in futsal."

We remind you that the first recipients of the UAF Presidential Order "Legend of Ukrainian Football" were distinguished homegrown footballers - captain of Kyiv Dynamo, best player of the USSR in 1966, and honored coach of Ukraine Andriy Biba, participant of the World Cup-1966 Valery Porkuyan, and another participant of WC-1966, former national team coach Yozef Sabo.

Also awarded with this order were the winners of "Golden Ball" - 1975, former national team coach Oleg Blokhin, winner of "Golden Ball" - 1986 Ihor Belanov and winner of "Golden Ball" - 2004, former national team coach Andriy Shevchenko.