Sports have given Ukrainian veterans maimed in the war with Russia “new dreams and goals to aspire to,” Ukraine soccer legend Andriy Shevchenko said.
Some of those veterans are in the Ukrainian squad playing in the Amputee Football European Championship in France.
Shevchenko, the 2004 Ballon D’Or winner and the son of a “military man,” is president of the Ukrainian Football Association (UFA) and devised the project to aid amputee veterans in June last year.
Photo: AFP
Shevchenko, 47, says Ukrainians owe a huge debt to the veterans, who have fought at great cost to defy the might of the Russian army since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion in February 2022.
“Sport allows them to feel alive even during difficult times,” Shevchenko said in an e-mail.
“Sport is a powerful instrument of the physical and psychological recovery of veterans, and also gives them new dreams and goals to aspire to. Veterans are the reason we are all alive today and have the opportunity to continue developing Ukrainian football,” he said.
The former Dynamo Kyiv, AC Milan and Chelsea striker said that about “70,000 amputees” are in Ukraine and “the majority are war veterans.”
“UFA has established one of its strategic goals to help them to return to active life through football,” he said. “We are currently putting together a road map of the project for the next five years on the development of amputee football across the country.”
There are teams in Lviv, Cherkasy and two in Kyiv, including Shakhtar Donetsk. For the moment all eyes are on the amputee squad — which has “four to five” veterans — competing in the Euro championships and who began their campaign with a 1-0 defeat against hosts France in Evian-les-Bains on Saturday, which was followed by a loss to Spain on Monday.
The veterans are a huge inspiration for the civilian amputees in the squad, head coach Dmytro Rzhondovskyi said.
Equally, the civilian players have their own role to play in helping the traumatized veterans, Rzhondovskyi said.
“The civilian players take pride in playing with the wounded veterans,” Rzhondovskyi said by telephone from Kyiv before the tournament.
“For them it is unbelievable. [The civilians] say ‘they are our heroes, our heroes are our soldiers.’ It’s so unbelievable for the civilian players,” he said. “However, they must as well help our soldiers, to get back and adapt to this life.”
Rzhondovskyi said that Ukraine are in a tough group for the nine-day tournament in which the matches last 50 minutes with six outfield players and a goalkeeper, who must be missing an arm, plus six substitutes.
However, morale has been boosted by Oleksandr Usyk’s world heavyweight title win over Tyson Fury a fortnight ago.
“Usyk is our spirit, he is Ukraine’s spirit, our power and we are so proud of Oleksandr,” said Rzhondovskyi, who used to play soccer with Usyk when they were young. “His was a very important victory for our country.”
Rzhondovskyi, who also coaches the women’s amputees team, knows what it takes to win a title.
The former Dynamo Kyiv academy player won Mundiavocat, the World Cup for lawyers, in Barcelona in 2018, scoring in the semi-final and final.
The 35-year-old, born in Prague as the son of a Ukrainian soldier, said he has not fought in the war yet, so this is his way of contributing to his country’s efforts.
“They are heroes. I am not a soldier, but for me I am a Ukrainian man helping female and male soldiers to adapt back to life after their traumatic injuries,” he said. “For me I am honored to know these people.”
Rzhondovskyi, who along with a pub-owning friend prepared meals for soldiers earlier in the war, said he is passionate about his job.
He is also due to oversee the women’s amputee team in the World Cup in Baranquilla, Colombia, in November.
However, he is unsure whether he will get there.
“It is very important for me the project because at the moment I am not there in a war, I am in Kyiv ... but I do not know where I will be tomorrow,” he said.
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