Mykhailo Mudryk became the 10th Ukrainian to play in the English championship's elite division
Making his debut for «Chelsea» in an away match of the 21st round of the English Premier League against «Liverpool» (0:0), Mykhailo Mudryk became the 12th Ukrainian to play in the system of English professional football and the 10th to score in the elite division.
Photo from chelseafc.com
Making his debut for Chelsea in an away match against Liverpool (0:0) in the 21st round of the English Premier League, Mykhailo Mudryk became the 12th Ukrainian to play professionally in England and the 10th to score in the top division.
Pioneers
The first was Sergiy Baltacha, who moved to Ipswich Town in 1988. However, the legendary defender never played in the elite league; his team competed at a lower level.
Oleksiy Cherednyk, on the other hand, had more luck when he joined Southampton from Dnipropetrovsk in 1990. He did play in the old First Division…
Yevtushenko's Breakthrough and Lutsenko's Power
The first Ukrainian to play in the modern Premier League was defender Oleksandr Yevtushok, who briefly moved from Dnipropetrovsk to Coventry City in 1997.
The next Ukrainian player to make it to the Premier League had much more success. In 1999, Oleg Lutsenko, the indomitable captain of Kyiv's Dynamo, joined Arsenal from his hometown club. Besides London, he also played in the Premier League for Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The Legendary Dynamo Duo and Voronin
Following him, in 2000, Serhiy Rebrov moved to the Premier League from the same Dynamo Kyiv under Valeriy Lobanovskyi. In England, the forward managed to play for two London clubs—Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United.
Six years later, his partner in attack at Dynamo Kyiv at the end of the last century, Andriy Shevchenko, joined Chelsea from AC Milan.
In 2007, Andriy Voronin signed with Liverpool and spent two seasons on the bench (with a loan spell at Hertfordshire).
A New Ukrainian Wave
A new wave of Ukrainian presence in the English Premier League was marked by Oleksandr Zinchenko's debut for Manchester City in 2017. Then came Andriy Yarmolenko’s first match for West Ham United in 2018, and Vitaliy Mykolenko's debut for Everton in 2022.
And now it is Mykhailo Mudryk's turn. We mark the date of our footballer's debut for Chelsea as January 21, 2023. An interesting detail: In 2018, Andriy Yarmolenko, like Mudryk, made his debut for West Ham United in an away match against Liverpool (0:4).
Let's not forget about Yegor Yarmoluk, who joined Brentford from Dnipropetrovsk-1 last summer and has already debuted for the Bees in a League Cup match against Gillingham.
