“I almost got into the story! One can only dream of such a thing! “

Oleksandr Shovkovsky, 45, a member of the Ukrainian national team coaching staff, recounted the details of the story of his inclusion in the request for a friendly match with France (1: 7).

“The script for the film is almost finished. It would be unrealistic to suppose something like this even in the most optimistic fantasy … But life sometimes presents us with the most unexpected surprises! Everything went according to the previously planned plan until the first results of the tests of the players of the national team for the coronavirus arrived!

The coaching staff of the Ukrainian team already on October 4, closer to night, knew that they would definitely not be able to count on the two Donetsk Miner players and were waiting for the result of the decision regarding the rest of the players who were at risk possibly they had also potentially contracted this COVID-19 virus.

This was the first link in the chain of circumstances! The second happened in Paris! Yura Pankiv was urgently called up to the national team. Arriving at the airport at the scheduled departure time, he and his team flew to France, where he met up with all the other players on the team, the so-called legionaries of ours.

Under the plan, everyone immediately passed a coronavirus test. And in fact of the tests, whose results were known on the morning of October 6, we are faced with the fact that we still cannot count on Andrey Lunin and the summoned Yuri Pankiv.

UEFA confirmed that the game must take place, as our team had more than 13 players, including a goalkeeper! In this situation, he only had to participate in pre-match training, where it was necessary to have two goalkeepers!

After training and after what he saw, head coach Andriy Shevchenko had the idea of ​​my possible application for the match as a substitute goalkeeper.

But I still had to understand if it was possible to do this, given that I was not an active professional athlete for almost four years and did not participate in any competitions.

I will miss many points, but I will say that after the inquiries, consultations and many other bureaucratic moments, the legal department received a response that there were no obstacles in my application to the party.

So I went down in history. He almost got into trouble. In such circumstances, the question of my entry into the field was not kept on the floor at all due to many factors. I will try to list them, but don’t stick to order and sequence.

The first is a limited number of substitutions, namely 6. In this case, you can only use three match saves to make them. With the understanding that we have two important Nations League games ahead of us, the coaching staff wanted to make the most of substitutions.

The second is respect for the players of the Ukraine and France national team (I don’t even need to figure it out here). The only option in which my departure was possible was the injury or the expulsion of our goalkeeper. I’m glad it didn’t happen. This is how I got into history.

But to be honest, I was happy to relive once again these fantastic pre-match emotions by the fact that you, as a player, are in the application for a match between the Ukrainian team and the reigning world champions. You can only dream of this! It is impossible to put it into words, ”Shovkovsky wrote.