Two days later Shakhtar will play the second leg against Rennes. A serious advantage comes from the victory won last week in Warsaw. And this victory began with a goal by Dmitry Kryskiv – probably the most “unpromoted” of all the “young lions” Igor Jovicevich. Terrikon.com eliminates this shortcoming by talking about the Pitmen’s new hero…
🧡 Let’s support Dmytro Kryskiv in voting for the best player of the week in the UEFA Europa League!
❗️ Vote for our midfielder here: https://t.co/EfylhHLtve.#Shakhtar #UEL pic.twitter.com/KOJMQnS6XK
— ⚒FC SHAKHTAR DONETSK (@FCShakhtar) February 17, 2023
If everything was fine with the old Metalist, Kryskiv would most likely play in this team now, and he would make his debut in European competitions in its composition. He is a native of Kharkov, a pupil of the Kharkov club and until the age of 16 was listed in its youth team. But when Metalist suffered a well-known crisis, Kryskiv had to move somewhere else. It was then that he became a Shakhtar player – and since then he has been a miner for 7 years. At least nominally.
True, he started playing for the first team only this season. Before that, he survived several leases: first in 2020 – to Mariupol (but did not play a single match there), then – to Metalist-1925, with whom he left the First League for the UPL. There Kryskiv quickly became noticeable, several times featured in the teams of the tour, scored beautiful goals and, what is important for him, again defended the honor of his native Kharkov. Again, if it were not for the war and the general exodus of legionnaires, he could never get a place in the first team of Shakhtar. But what happened happened – and here is Kryskiv in front of us in all its glory.
Speaking of the current European debut of Kryskiv, we should not forget about his appearances in the UEFA Youth League for Shakhtar. There, Dmitry appeared in three seasons, from 2017 to 2020, in the positions of a central and attacking midfielder. He did not score with effective actions, but opposed such teams as Manchester City, Napoli, Atalanta, Feyenoord, Lyon, Hoffenheim. As a result, he rose to captain status and became an absolutely indispensable person for the team.
And speaking of Kryskiv’s international career, how not to mention him performances for the youth team of Ukraine? For the first time Dmitry was called there in the summer of 2019 for friendly matches, he made his debut, coming on as a substitute against Cyprus. But it took two years to become a part of this team. Only in 2021, Ruslan Rotan fully appreciated him, introduced him to the squad – and Kryskiv immediately scored in two matches in a row (this was the qualification for the European Championship). And last fall he continued to play for this team. Most likely, he will also play at Euro 2023 – at least he is mentally preparing for this.
Kryskiv’s strengths are his versatility and performance. A modest person in life, he is one of the most diligent on the field, he strives to clearly follow the coaching instructions, to ensure the maximum available to him on his site. Kryskiw is a mobile midfielder who tends to move across the width and depth of the front. And this is a creative football player – Igor Jovičević especially notes his football intellect, the ability to usefully participate in the development of attacks.
Another important nuance in Kryskiva’s game is his ability to perform defensive actions. For example, this was very clearly manifested in a successful match with Rennes, especially in those difficult moments when the opponent pressed on and was ready to turn the match around. As a result, Kryskiv made 3 tackles, which is a lot for a player in his position. And of the Shakhtar defenders, only Bohdan Mykhailychenko (4) has more than him in this indicator in that match.
Kryskiv scores infrequently. For Metalist-1925 in 43 matches – only 5 goals, for Shakhtar this season, however, better – 3 goals and 2 assists in 6 UPL matches. The duel with Ingulets on November 5 last year became a star for him – Dmitry participated in all three goals of his team, scoring himself and giving two effective passes to his partners. But he scored the most beautiful goal in his career (so far) in his debut match at the UPL level – on July 25, 2021 against Rukh. It was a powerful long-range strike from the category of untaken.
Kryskiv got his chance at Shakhtar after the departure of Mykhailo Mudryk. In the autumn version of the line-up, his role was rather modest – close rotation in the middle midfield zone, where Georgy Sudakov and Artem Bondarenko were the main ones. Mudrik’s departure created a hole in the squad that Igor Jovicevich tried to fill with Kryskiv. The experiment was a success – against “Rennes” on the position of the left winger, Dmitry acted energetically, inventively, moved a lot to the center, scored a goal and earned a nomination for Europa League Player of the Week (in this dispute, however, he lost to the now incomparable Marcus Rashford).
Igor Jovicevich told a little about how Kryskiv turned out to be Mudrik’s replacement after the match with Rennes: “Dima Kryskiv showed already with his games in the last championship what he is capable of in a different position. This is a football player with intelligence, able to adapt to team actions “And today he played very well at the team level. In addition to the goal scored, it was with him that the second goal began – he gave it to Hemp. Throughout the training camp, we played several options, and Kryskiv just now fits our game model in terms of its characteristics“. Sources close to Shakhtar say that at least three candidates were considered for the vacant position of the left winger, and Kryskiv was not at all the first contender. But in the end, he turned out to be the best of all options.
After a successful match in the European Cup, Kryskiv will certainly be noticed in Europe. However, he is no stranger to foreign attention – at least, according to his agent Yuri Danchenko. Back in 2021, this figure in the football market assured that his client representatives of the championships of Belgium and the Czech Republic are interested. “Dmitry Kryskiv is one of the leaders of Metalist-1925 and the current youth team. He is in great demand now,” Danchenko said at the time. However, this did not lead to any specifics. But now the situation is different!
Vadim Samoilov, especially for the “Spoil heap”
