The Ukrainian Premier League for the final time this calendar year returns to the focus of attention of domestic fans after a pause for matches of national teams. The latter traditionally brought quite a lot of interesting events and results, but for fans of the Lviv “Rukh” it was remembered for the fact that for the first time in history a representative of this team played for the main national team of Ukraine. The pioneer turned out to be 23-year-old right back Alexey Sych, who in the 76th minute of the Nations League match against Albania (2:1) came on as a substitute instead of his colleague in the role of Efim Konoplya, and in general spent the time allocated to him on the field in such a way that in his address, no serious claims can be made.
Sych’s call to the national team did not become something sensational for football experts and fans who closely follow everything that happens in the Ukrainian Premier League. The right back of “Rukh” has a stable playing experience in the ranks of the Lviv team, and last season he took first place in terms of the amount of playing time spent on the field in the championship among football players of all clubs. Moreover, Vitaly Ponomarev’s team itself leaves very positive emotions about itself, which is why the appearance of its representatives in the “blue-yellow” camp is not some kind of sensation at all, but rather, on the contrary, recognition of the merits of the Lviv team and the quality of work his coaching staff.
But frankly speaking, what surprised me about Sych was something else. Why did Alexey show up for the national team so late, because last season Rukh’s right full-back certainly didn’t look any less quality than he does now? The only “justification” for the personnel choice on Rebrov’s part that comes to mind now is the desire of the national team’s coaching staff to check the stability of the Rukh representative, and then call him up to the Ukrainian national team. What is true is that such an approach, if it was actually applied in this situation, causes even more skepticism, because sometimes players from Shakhtar or Dynamo are taken to the national team without this whole “stability test,” but only after several months of more than – less successful performances. It turns out there are double standards or what?..
Another, let’s say behind-the-scenes, explanation for Sych’s appearance in the Ukrainian national team right now (note, it did not take place during the September or even October break for international matches, but right now – during the last period of national team games before the opening of the next transfer window) is connected with the fact that they decided to provide the footballer with a wide promotion – to be exposed at the top level, which will probably allow Rukh to try to profitably place Sych in one of the serious European championships is in the near future.
It’s no secret that the current “Rukh” is a very, very ambitious project, both from a sporting and economic point of view. It is not surprising that at the end of the last season, when the Lviv team lost to Dynamo (1:2) in the last round of the 2023/24 UPL, and Polissya unexpectedly beat the unmotivated Shakhtar (2:0), which meant the Lviv team’s failure past the European Cups, the founder and ideological inspirer of “Rukh” Grigory Kozlovsky was extremely depressed and almost shed a stingy man’s tear in the company of his wife Yulia Dumanskaya, who is de jure the president of the club.
Obviously, reaching the European Cup was important for Kozlovsky. He understood that this was the only way the club could take a new step in development – get the opportunity to make itself known on the continent, highlight some players and, probably, begin to seriously bargain with the “powers that be” regarding the sale of this or that performer. But on the way to a bright future, a barrier suddenly appeared from Polissya and Shakhtar…
In such conditions, “Rukh” would have been forced to continue, figuratively speaking, marking time for another year, hoping that the team would still be able to secure a European Cup “ticket” for the 2025/26 season. And this kind of stagnation is destructive for any business, especially such a dynamic one as football, where today a player can be at the peak and worth all the money in the world, and tomorrow, after a series of events, find himself far in the margins and not arouse the interest of almost anyone…
Sych himself really deserved a call to the national team, but the moment at which he received it raises certain questions – is it really not just about sporting achievements, but about the desire to satisfy someone’s economic interests? And besides Alexey, “Rukh” already has interesting performers who can repeat the path of the right full-back to the main team of the country, but for now they called Sych, as he is more experienced and, probably, adapted. It seems that in order to eliminate any embarrassment as much as possible…
Sych is indeed a very, very experienced player for the current Rukh, even despite his relatively young age by football standards. The fact is that Alexey spent the 2022/23 season in the Belgian Pro League, where he played on loan for Kortrijk, a team that is a permanent resident of the middle or bottom of the standings. Then the Ukrainian got off to a pretty good start, immediately winning a place in the starting lineup, but subsequently suffered damage to the medial collateral ligament of the knee, which took him out of the game for several months and allowed him to return only at the very end of the season…
Initially, Kortrijk agreed on the lease of Sych with Rukh in such a way that the Belgians had the option of buying out the Ukrainian. According to unofficial data, then the talk was about an amount in the range of 2-3 million euros, but for some reason Kortrijk refused to implement this opportunity. It was rumored that the Belgians did not have any money, but in general such information raises fair doubts, since in the summer of 2023 Kortrijk received about 7 million euros in profit from selling its players to other clubs. Was it really impossible to carve out a couple of million from this amount for Sych, or to agree with Rukh on a different format of the deal, implying, for example, payment of the entire amount in installments over a certain period of time?
Most likely, the idea of Kortrijk was to play the promising Sych in Belgium, highlight him on the continent, and then resell him profitably if there was some suitor with enough money for the Ukrainian. However, an injury happened at the wrong time, breaking the plans of the Belgians, “Rukh” and, probably, the footballer himself, if, of course, they were built in exactly this way.
What is important: after the loan at Kortrijk, Rukh realized that they themselves could become the base for promoting young talents before moving to one of the top leagues in Europe. Moreover, the beginning of a full-scale invasion of Russian occupiers led to a generally rapid degradation of a number of UPL teams, which were considered very, very competitive, and in the new realities, Rukh really began to look like a contender for high places, not only on paper, but also in reality .
However, last season Rukh still failed to achieve its maximum sports goal. At the same time, for further development and progress, the club definitely needs to improve its economy, and this cannot be done without profitable outgoing transfers. But where can we get them when young talents continue to “stew in their own juice,” that is, exclusively within the framework of the UPL, which many experts consider insufficiently competitive and indicative in the current conditions? So the option arose with the national team, where the same Sych, which is also very significant and interesting, was not called up immediately, but was called up after having previously excluded Tymchik from the Dynamo team.
It is also worth noting that at the moment the most profitable outgoing transfer in the history of Rukh, based on data from the Transfermarkt portal, is… the loan of the Brazilian Talles Brener to the Japanese club Kashima Antlers. For it, according to the above source, which completely coincides with the information from Sport.ua, the Lviv residents received 400 thousand euros. And this is the maximum benefit received from the departure of a football player in the history of Rukh as of the current moment. Agree, it’s quite sparse, even for the current crisis UPL, not to mention the European championships…
Therefore, based on the totality of signs, everything points to Rukh’s preparation to update its club transfer record for the sale of players, and it is Sych who looks like the most suitable candidate for this. Alexey really reached the ceiling in the club at the UPL level, he tried his hand earlier in Belgium, was played in the Ukrainian national team, and also has a contract with Rukh until the summer of 2028. All these are clear trump cards for the Lviv bosses to bargain for their player as much as possible in January and demonstrate their ambition on the market, giving other first-team talents a real hope of qualifying for a good European championship.
What is true is that in this case everything is very logical, understandable and correct “on paper”. We can only wait to see what and when will be implemented in practice, and to what extent Sych actually fits into at least the medium-term plans of Rebrov’s coaching staff in the national team, or was he played there solely for the sake of increasing transfer interest, as is often practiced, for example, in the Brazilian national team …
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