“We recall and evaluate the successes of goal scorers who were considered very promising 10 years ago…”, — write: sport.ua
As part of this material, we offer you to recall the best scorers of the youth championship of Ukraine, the draw of which ended ten years ago – based on the results of the 2013/14 season. What happened to these guys, what did they achieve in football and did they manage to become famous? We will talk about all this in the framework of the “Where are they now?” column, which is traditional for our site.
Dmytro Lukanov (“Zorya”) – 8 goals in the 2013/14 MSU 
FC Zorya. Dmytro Lukanov Dmytro Lukanov, a graduate of the “Zori” academy, was considered a very promising player for his club, and in the 2013/14 season, he turned out to be the best scorer of the “black and white” youth team, which finished in a fairly high fifth position in the final version of the tournament table.
Subsequently, Lukanov managed to play 4 official matches for the first team of “Zorya” (274 minutes), but his professional football career did not fully develop due to severe injuries. At a certain point (to be more precise, in 2017), the young forward simply got tired of fighting with them and had to quietly “retire” after finishing his performances at a high level.
Lukanov is currently 29 years old. In the fall of 2023, he told journalists that after leaving football for a while he even worked in a courier delivery service, but then he was flattered to get a job as a selector at Shakhtar’s academy: “After Zorya, I had a little apathy and detachment from football. There was a state of disappointment. I wanted to take a break from the game and maybe find myself in a different direction. At first, he somehow survived on the savings he had from his playing career. I found part-time jobs. He even worked as a courier for Glovo for two weeks. Then Ivan Mykhailovych Kotsyuba, the head of the Shakhtar academy’s selection department, contacted me and offered to try my hand at it. We met, discussed everything, and I agreed. This is how my career as a breeder began.”
Roman Debelko (“Metalurg” Donetsk) – 8 goals in the 2013/14 MSU 
FC Kryvbas. Roman Debelko A pupil of SDYUSHOR “Prykarpattia” Roman Debelko at a young age moved to the Donetsk “Metalurg” academy, where he continued to develop his scoring skills. In the youth championship of Ukraine-2013/14, Roman became the second in the list of goal scorers in his team, making it clear that he is ready for adult football, especially since he previously managed to spend six months on loan in the Armenian “Banana”.
Due to the de facto collapse of the Donetsk “Metalurg”, which occurred as a result of the Russian-inspired war in Donbas, Debelko continued his career in other teams: “Steel” from Kamiansk, “Karpaty”, Estonian “Levadia”, Latvian “Riga”, Belarusian “Shakhtar” from Soligorsk, “Kryvbas”. Since August of this year, 31-year-old Debelko has been playing in the First League of Ukrainian football for the Yuksa team.
In his professional career, Debelko became the champion of Latvia with “Riga” and the champion of Belarus with “Shakhtar”. He was the winner of the Cup and Super Cup of Estonia with “Levadia”, and in his homeland he won the “bronze” of the Ukrainian Premier League with “Kryvbas” at the end of last season. In the elite division of domestic football, Debelko played 82 matches, scoring 11 goals and 3 assists.
Artem Besedin (“Dynamo”) – 8 goals in the 2013/14 MChU 
FC Ordabasy. Artem Besedin The youth team “Dynamo” took only the sixth position according to the results of the draw of the respective championship in the 2013/14 season, and the best scorer of the “white and blue” team was Artem Besedin, who managed to score 8 goals.
Subsequently, Besedin was flattered to become the main performer for the first team of “Dynamo”, although there the forward was quite and regularly received from the fans, who permanently criticized the player for wastefulness and carelessness when it came to the realization of scoring chances. However, this in no way prevented Besedin from becoming a two-time champion of Ukraine, a three-time winner of the Cup and a two-time winner of the country’s Super Cup together with Dynamo. Also, Artem played 19 matches for the national team of Ukraine (2 goals), and in the UPL he played a total of 111 matches, in which he scored 31 goals and 10 assists.
Subsequently, Besedin played in Cyprus as part of Omonia, with which he won the country’s Cup, and since last summer he has been a player of Ordabasa, which became the champion of Kazakhstan in 2023.
Vladyslav Wojciechovskyi (Dnipro) – 9 goals in the 2013/14 MChU 
FC Left Bank. Vladyslav Wojciechovskyi (right) Wojciechovsky showed hope in the Dnipro academy and showed very good performance at the youth and youth levels, however… The winger never got his chance to prove himself in the first team. In the summer of 2014, Vladyslav left for “Naftovyk” from Okhtyrka, where he spent three seasons, and then returned to Dnipro, but already to the ranks of the first league at that time, “Dnipro-1”.
Wojciechovsky was not lucky enough to build a career at the top level in Ukraine. From “Dnipro-1” he went to “Mykolaiv”, then helped the formation of LNZ, first in the Second, and later in the First Leagues. And since last summer, Vladyslav has been a player of “Left Bank”. It is noteworthy that it was Wojciechovsky’s goal that allowed the “Storks” to tie the score in the semi-finals of the Tournament of Four with “Metalist 1925”, and later beat the Kharkiv team in a penalty shootout. In the final, the Kyiv team defeated “Mynai”, and from now on Wojciechovskyi, together with them, finally got the opportunity to prove himself at the UPL level. He is currently 31 years old…
Andriy Bliznichenko (Dnipro) – 9 goals in the 2013/14 MChU 
FC Dnipro. Andriy Bliznichenko Bliznichenko, who represented Dnipro at the youth level, was predicted to have a successful career, and he was regularly called up to the youth and youth national teams of Ukraine, however… Andrii never managed to play at least one match for the country’s national team.
In “Dnipro” this football player showed great hopes, but his youth fell on the period of de facto collapse of the club. As a result, “Dnipro” were forced to sell Bliznichenko to Turkey in order to find money for further existence, and in “Karabyukspor” the Ukrainian completely failed to reach a new level, and in one and a half seasons he received the status of a free agent.
To resuscitate his career, Bliznichenko went to “Sheriff”, with whom he became the champion of Moldova twice, and also won the Cup there once. At the beginning of 2022, Andriy returned to Ukraine and has been performing in his homeland since then. He played for “Ingulets”, “Veres” and “Zvyagel”, and now, at the age of 30, he has a contract with Zaporizhia “Metalurg”, which plays in the First League.
Vadym Yavorskyi (“Chornomorets”) – 10 goals in the 2013/14 MSU 
FC Chornomorets. Vadym Yavorskyi At the youth level, a pupil of the “Chrnomorets” Academy, Vadym Yavorsky showed great hopes. Thanks to this, he got the opportunity to establish himself in the first team of the “sailors”, for which he played a total of 13 p. matches (645 minutes), but he was not able to stand out in them with effective actions.
The Odesa club loaned Yavorsky several times to other clubs (“Hirnyk-Sport”, “Veres”, “Mykolaiv”), and in February 2018, he finally released him as a free agent to “Sum”. After leaving the “sailors” camp, Vadim never played at the UPL level again, playing exclusively in the First League, where he has 151 matches, 40 goals and 9 assists.
In August 2022, Yavorskyi left Ukraine and moved to Poland. Since that time, the forward, who celebrated his 30th birthday in the summer of this year, has been playing there for very regular teams from the local “swamp”…
Yasyn Hamid (“Metalurg” Donetsk) – 11 goals in the 2013/14 MChU 
FC Metalurg D. Yasyn Hamid Yasyn Hamid was born and raised in Kharkiv, although he is of Egyptian origin. In 2009, he moved to the Donetsk “Metalurg” academy, where he played for the youth team until the club’s disappearance. For the first team of “Metallurgists”, Hamid was lucky enough to play only two matches in the Cup, when the coaching staff briefly released a promising striker as a substitute.
In 2015, Yasyn Hamid left Ukraine and went to Azerbaijan. It is known that the forward played in this country until 2017, after which Zira announced the termination of his contract. Since that time, nothing has been heard about Hamid, who has several dozen matches for the youth national teams of Ukraine of various ages…
Andriy Totovytskyi (“Illichivets”) – 11 goals in the 2013/14 MSU 
FC Shakhtar. Andriy Totovytskyi Andriy Totovytskyi spent the 2013/14 season in Mariupol on loan from Shakhtar, playing for the local team, which at that time still had the relict name of Illichivets. As a rookie, the young attacking midfielder from the very beginning did not have regular game practice in the first team, and therefore in the first half of the season he was involved in games for the youth team. As a result, Totovytskyi’s performances impressed everyone – in 11 matches he scored 11 goals, and in the spring he played exclusively for the first team of “Illichivets” in the Ukrainian Premier League.
However, Totovytskyi’s very successful performances for Illichivets, as well as for a number of other teams, did not allow Andriy to claim a place at the base of Shakhtar, where Brazilians dominated the midfield in those years. It ended with Shakhtar selling Totovytskyi to Desna in January 2020, but in the summer of 2022, after a personnel crisis caused by the start of a full-scale phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Andriy was forced to return.
However, Totovitsky never managed to play for Shakhtar, no matter how many times he returned to this club – only 19 official matches, 1 goal and 2 assists…
Farid Ali (“Metalurg” Zaporizhzhia) – 11 goals in the 2013/14 MSU 
GCS Jastshembe. Farid Ali Farid Ali, who is of Ukrainian-Yemen origin, came through Arsenal’s academy in the capital before moving to Zaporizhzhia, where he played for the youth team in the 2013/14 season and scored 11 goals in 27 matches. Not a bad indicator, but it did not contribute to the advancement of the attacking midfielder to the first team of Metalurg, for which he played only 8 minutes in one UPL match of the 2015/16 season.
At the beginning of 2016, Farid Ali left Metalurg and spent several months looking for a new club, and then signed a contract with Polish GKS Jastshembe. It is interesting that Ali still plays for this team to this day. Now 32, he is probably one of the symbols of the current Jastsembe, having played 225 official matches for this team (30 goals and 17 assists). Currently, Ali’s team plays in the third strongest division of Polish football, although for a long time it played in the second…
Volodymyr Koval (“Sevastopol”) – 16 goals in the 2013/14 MChU 
FC Chornomorets. Volodymyr Koval Center forward Volodymyr Koval is a graduate of the Dynamo academy, from which he moved to Sevastopol in the summer of 2012. At that time, the “sailors” were still playing in the First League of Ukrainian football, and the young football player was useful to the team at this level, scoring 7 assists in 23 matches. However, after the promotion of “Sevastopol” to the UPL level, Koval failed to become an important figure for the first team (4 matches), and played much more for the youth team. Moreover, at this level, Volodymyr performed brilliantly, scoring 16 goals in 16 matches.
In the summer of 2014, Koval moved to the Polish “Stomil” as a free agent, after which he wandered around foreign countries a little more, and in the 2018/19 season he returned to Ukraine to the ranks of “Chornomorets”, and even got the opportunity to play at the UPL level. However, Koval failed to take advantage of this chance again (2 goals in 23 matches). Since then, the forward’s career has slowly but surely gone downhill: Belarusian “Neiman”, “Left Bank”, a year and a half idle, “Kudrivka”… Currently, 32-year-old Koval plays at the amateur level for “Lisne” from the Kyiv region.
Vladlen Yurchenko (Shakhtar) – 17 goals in the 2013/14 MChU 
FC Shakhtar. Vladlen Yurchenko At a certain point, Vladlen Yurchenko was considered one of the most talented “academics” in the structure of Shakhtar. Among other things, the attacking midfielder confirmed this status in the 2013/14 Youth Championship of Ukraine, when he scored 17 goals in 17 matches, and then was transferred to Shakhtar-3 to perform at the level of the Second League.
However, Yurchenko did not want to wait for his chance in the first team, which is not a fact that it would come at all. Already in the summer of 2014, the young midfielder scandalously went to Bayer Leverkusen, which cost only 255,000 euros. In Leverkusen, as it seemed at first, everything was going very well for the Ukrainian, because he even got the opportunity to play in the Bundesliga, but then injuries occurred, and in the end, Bayer released Vladlen as a free agent to all four parties in the summer of 2018.
Reanimated Yurchenko’s career in the Danish “Vail” as well as in “Zora”, where he was recognized by UPL standards as a very high-quality and creative performer. Since that time, Vladlen’s career has also included performances for “Desna”, “Riga” and “Vorskla”, and now he is a football player of the first league “Metalista 1925”.
Oleg Barannik (“Vorskla”) – 18 goals in the 2013/14 MSU 
FC Avangard. Oleg Barannik The best scorer of the 2013/14 season in the youth championship of Ukraine was Vorskla forward Oleh Barannik, who scored 18 goals in 21 matches. At this level, the attacker really looked impressive, although he managed to debut in the UPL for Poltava at the age of 18 years, 6 months and 12 days under Mykola Pavlov. He played a total of 73 official matches (7 goals, 3 assists) for the first team of “Vorskli”, 57 of which were in the UPL.
At a certain time, it was rumored that Shakhtar and Dynamo showed interest in Barannik, but it was not possible to take a serious step in the development of this forward. As a result, in the summer of 2017, Oleg moved to “Poltava” as a free agent, and then played for “Naftovyk”, “Avangard” and “Kremin” until he fell to the amateur level. From the latest information about Barannik: in 2022, he played for the “Standard” Novi Sanzhara team, and in 2023 – for “Rokyta”. Both teams represent the Poltava region at the amateur level.