Taras Stepanenko used to be the great hope of Ukrainian football. Perhaps he lacked a little pace, but he read the game superbly and was a fine passer of the ball. Most of all, he had an assurance, an aura of quality that made him stand out. When he joined Shakhtar Donetsk from Metalurh Zaporizhzhya shortly before his 21st birthday, the route to a major western European club seemed clear. Fourteen years later, a lot has happened, but he is still there.
He has won 11 Ukrainian league titles and eight cups, but he has only ever played 262 minutes in the knockout stage of the Champions League. There used to be a sense of Stepanenko as an unfulfilled talent, but loyalty has an additional value in Ukraine these days. It may be his achievements with Ukraine at this Euros have a significance that reverberate far beyond anything he has achieved at club level.
“This war has been affecting Ukrainian players every day for more than two years,” Stepanenko said. “Yesterday, the Russians attacked Kharkiv with aerial bombs, causing destruction and casualties. Every day you read such news. It is unknown how long this war will continue. All players have friends and relatives in Ukraine. We think about our country and our people.”
He did not have his best game in the 3-0 defeat to Romania with which Ukraine began the group, prompting his Romanian former Shakhtar teammate Razvan Rat to joke that he was going to ring him and tell him to retire. That provoked a minor furore and Rat did ring him – to apologise, but the two are mates and Stepanenko seems to have taken it as the joke it surely was.
The more general focus on his age after the Romania game, though, clearly irritated him. “People react to a defeat and say Stepanenko is old,” he said. “But I was 34 when we beat Barcelona, and played matches against England and Italy. I don’t quite understand what has changed. These six months were not very successful for me because of injuries. But no one sees that after every match in the Ukrainian championship, I come home and get on the treadmill. This is so that when the coach gives me a chance to play, I stay at the level I should be. The most important thing is not what they say but what you do.”
Ukraine’s Everton left-back Vitaly Mykolenko added: “Ashley Young plays with me. He is 38, and no one says he is old, that he should retire.” Mykolenko was one of the few positive elements at Goodison last season and the way he refers the majority of questions back to Everton suggests a real affection for the club, but it’s an unfortunate feature of the way he speaks, at least in translation, that almost everything he says sounds as though it could be sarcastic. “Amadou Onana is a great player,” he said, “just look at his transfer value. We are not close friends, but we are good partners. In the next game, we will not be friends or partners.”
Although all four teams in the group have won one and lost one, goal difference means Ukraine need a win to be certain of going through while a draw will be enough for Belgium. A draw would be enough for both if there is a winner in the other game.
Stepanenko acknowledged Ukraine had played better against Slovakia, after he was left out. “Against Romania, I believe we were not a united team but rather individual players,” he said. “In such a tournament, only a team can win a trophy, get out of the group, and show results.”
Precise targets of winning the competition or getting out of the group don’t really matter; what is important is that the national team continues to provide a rallying point for as long as possible. “You could say our participation in the Euros is an incredible achievement because we unite people and the whole country,” said the midfielder Georgiy Sudakov.
“People gather where there is electricity and access to TV and the internet to watch our games. Everyone understands why there’s no electricity and the consequences of this. But I’m proud of our country that we can adapt even to such conditions. I know that our soldiers in the trenches also watch us.”
