Yuriy Vernydub is busy preparing Kryvbas Kryvyi Rih for their Europa League qualifying campaign but unlike other coaches in the competition he knows the call from his military unit could come at any time. “I am still a soldier,” the 58-year-old says. “I haven’t been demobilised.”
Vernydub joined the Ukrainian army immediately after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. He had just signed a lucrative contract extension at the Moldovan side Sheriff Tiraspol but did not think twice when his country needed him.
“That was my choice,” he says. “I guess I had a good upbringing. Sheriff were about to play at Braga in the Europa League when my son called and told me what had happened. After the game, I went to my home town of Zaporizhzhia and started to defend my homeland. Yes, I was 56 at the time, but there were a lot of people like me. The average age in our unit was about 48.
“I was responsible for providing ammunition for the artillery in the Dnipropetrovsk region. The Russians made progress and our goal was to stop them. When we completed our missions, we went backwards, and the infantry took our place. That is how it continued for three and a half months until June 2022.”
Then, in an unexpected turn, he got a chance to get back to football. The war, paradoxically, helped him land his new post. “I first met with the Kryvbas president, Kostyantyn Karamanits, at the end of 2021,” Vernydub says. “He offered me to take charge but I was happy at Sheriff. But it was a good thing to know him because I felt comfortable to contact him when we needed things for the army. We were shelled and there was a shortage of fuel. I asked Karamanits to help and he was very positive. He did everything he could for us.
“Our relationship became closer and he asked if I would be willing to work at Kryvbas when the Ukrainian league resumed. They had just been promoted to the top division. I said that was impossible because I am a soldier. He said that the club would try to solve it with the military chiefs. Then, out of the blue, an officer came to me and said that they were moving me to Kryvyi Rih so that I would be able to return to football.”
Not many coaches have been loaned from the army to a football club but Vernydub’s military duties are still important. “When something urgent happens, I have to go to my squadron. It never happened on match days so far but there were cases when I finished a training session, put the military uniform on and drove to my base.”
The war still feels surreal to him. “I would never have imagined such a thing could be possible,” says Vernydub, whose best spell as a player came at the Russian club Zenit. The coach then was the Kyiv-born Anatoliy Byshovets. Within months, Vernydub was the club captain.
“The entire coaching staff was Ukrainian and we had numerous Ukrainian players too,” Vernydub says. “I was the leader, first as central defender, then as holding midfielder. Those were good times. In 1999, Zenit won the Russian Cup for the first time since 1944. After 55 years! I was the one who lifted it. I had superb relations with the management, including club president Vitaly Mutko, who was Putin’s right-hand man in St Petersburg during his first elections campaign.”
Those memories are ruined beyond repair. Zenit are owned by Gazprom, the Russian state corporation, and Vernydub cannot comprehend how Ukrainians can continue working there – especially the assistant coach Anatoliy Tymoshchuk. The former Bayern Munich midfielder is the men’s national team’s record caps holder.
“Tymoshchuk is not a man for me,” Vernydub says. “This is even more incredible because he is from western Ukraine. But that is the path he had chosen. At least Yaroslav Rakitskyi was decent enough to leave immediately after the full-scale war started.” The transfer of Rakitskyi, a central defender, to Zenit in 2019 was hugely controversial because of the Russian invasion of Donbas five years previously.
“I am not in touch with anyone from Zenit now, apart from my former Ukrainian teammates,” Vernydub says. “One of them, Roman Maksymyuk, who is younger than me, is also in the army now. Overall I can’t have conversations with Russian people any more. I have a cousin in St Petersburg and she tried to convince me that our lives would be better after Russia conquered Ukraine. I haven’t spoken to her since February 2022. The situation is the same with my wife’s uncle, who also lives in Russia.”
Apart from the stint at Zenit, Vernydub’s playing career never reached the heights that would have allowed him to fulfil the dream of playing for Dynamo Kyiv. “I am from Zhytomyr, which is near Kyiv, and my father used to take me to Dynamo matches. They are my team. I grew up admiring Valeriy Lobanovskyi, who built such great teams in the 70s and the 80s. He is my idol, but I never knew him personally. Instead, I was there at his last game.
“It happened in May 2002, during my first season as assistant coach at Metalurh Zaporizhzhia. We played at home against Dynamo and Lobanovskyi suddenly felt unwell. He was taken to the hospital, and the best doctors were urgently called from Kyiv, but they couldn’t save him. He died a week later in my town. It was a major tragedy for the entire country and for me personally.”
During eight years at Zorya Luhansk Vernydub turned the modest club into the third-best in Ukraine and often qualified for the Europa League, twice competing in the group stage. They faced Manchester United in 2016 and Vernydub recalls: “We were close to beating them at Old Trafford. We missed three great chances against David de Gea, before Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored.”
A year later Zorya met Östersund, with Vernydub impressed by Graham Potter: “They were organised but flexible and changed systems frequently during matches. Potter was a great opponent and we lost twice. It was more difficult to play against Östersund than against José Mourinho’s United, who were quite predictable.”
Vernydub’s finest hour as a coach came in September 2021 when Sheriff sensationally won 2-1 at the Bernabéu in the Champions League. “I was certain that we were capable of beating Real Madrid as we had really fast players for counterattacks. Carlo Ancelotti is a great coach. He shook my hand and wished me luck. He was very disappointed but calmly said that the most important thing is how the team would respond to such a result. They responded well and won the Champions League.
Sheriff, who finished above Shakhtar Donetsk in their group, were delighted with Vernydub’s work and disappointed to lose him that season, but there were no hard feelings. “A week after the war started I called Sheriff and told them that returning won’t be possible,” he says. “They understood me and proposed to cancel the contract. They didn’t have a problem with that and wished me luck. Transnistria is considered to be a pro-Russian state, but a lot of people are pro-Ukraine. The Sheriff management are still in touch with me.”
Kryvbas have done well under Vernydub, finishing third last season. “The last match day was on 25 May, which happened to be Kryvyi Rih’s 249th birthday. There was a great occasion for the city. People were so happy that we qualified for Europe it’s just a shame that they can’t witness the games as the European fixtures will take place abroad.
“Football is so popular in Kryvyi Rih. We could have easily filled any stadium. We miss them so much, and it is a massive disadvantage for us. As things stand during the war, only 500 or 600 spectators are allowed to be in the stands, because there must be room for everyone in the shelters.”
Sadly, those shelters are needed. “There is a lot of shelling, Kryvyi Rih is frequently targeted. If we don’t have 10 or 12 sirens, it is considered to have been a good day. We are used to playing and training during the sirens with rockets fired at us. The players have courage. We all have to take risks – that’s what life is about.
“A lot of games were interrupted during the last two seasons; I have even lost count of them. In May, our match against Polissya Zhytomyr had to be interrupted during the first half and was only completed the next day. In order to prevent such cases, kick-offs are usually scheduled for early hours. We are only allowed to play until 10pm, because there is curfew from 11pm to 5am.
“Yet football still brings people joy and that gives us additional motivation. We will do our best for our fans and our nation. Qualifying for the group stage would be tremendous. It should be more difficult than with Zorya, but I hope we will do even better. Despite the situation we have numerous good foreign players. We have modest but very good training facilities. Players live there and get everything they need, so that they can focus on football.
“Naturally, I ask them to go to the shelters when rocket attacks start at night. We have very luxurious shelters.”
Hopefully, at some point in the near future, Vernydub and his players will not have to use them and he will be demobilised. For now, though, he keeps fighting on both fronts.
