"I want to be a professional footballer: that's my dream" – Vladyslav Zelensky, who shares a surname with the Ukrainian president says. He fled war-torn Lysychansk in Eastern Ukraine and moved with his brother and mother to Mosonmagyaróvár. He did not hear from his father for a year. Vlady celebrated a championship title in Győr-Moson-Sopron county's second division on Sunday, and he had also tried out for NB II clubs in both Gyirmót and Mosonmagyaróvár. His story has not yet come to a happy ending: few young Ukrainian refugees remain in the youth teams of professional clubs in Hungary's North Transdanubia region.
Vladyslav Zelensky will turn 19 soon. He fled Ukraine to escape the war: the Russians occupied his hometown a year ago after brutal rocket attacks, he and his family had no choice but to leave. He fled with his mother and brother, ending up in the Hungarian town of Mosonmagyaróvár. His father stayed behind to defend his homeland. For almost a year he had hardly heard from him, and they had no way of seeing each other until last December, when he was finally able to join them, and they have been together ever since," he says.
The family took jobs in Mosonmagyaróvár and the company where they work also provides them with accommodation. And for Vlady, football was the only leisure activity left. He used to play futsal in Ukraine, but there was no opportunity for that here. A friend invited him to accompany him to nearby Ásványráró. It's nothing serious, the second division in the county, give it a go, he said. In the training sessions, it was immediately obvious that Vladyslav was a skillful, fast boy, and they signed him up for the youth team:
In his first game, he scored four goals in a 5-1 win and nine in a 10-0 win in his third game.
His opponents had also taken notice of him, and he was fouled in the match against Hegyeshalom, where he was so badly injured that an ambulance was called because he had broken his collarbone in two places. He was out for six months, then returned to the senior team in the spring, scoring eight goals in total and celebrating a league title with his team on Sunday. In the meantime, Vlady also trained in the Gyirmót club for two days and then got his first taste of more serious football in Mosonmagyaróvár.
I found it difficult to understand the instructions during training
My dream is to turn professional," he told Telex. He added that he did not feel ready for that yet, "because I had not yet learned Hungarian, so understanding the instructions during training has been difficult". He is learning Hungarian and plans to try out again next year for one of the nearby NB II teams. He quit his job in March this year in order to give his best. But now he has had to realize that the time is not yet right for that: he will return to work in the summer, as it is difficult for his family to manage without it.
The Gyirmót club doesn't have any junior footballers who fled the war," Zsolt Tamási, the club's professional director told us. He added that Zelensky had trained with them for two days after the championship finished and that he had also seen him play in the final of the Keglovich Cup, but that was against two lower-level teams. Whether he is fit to play football at a more serious level could be decided by a one-week or two-week test. When the young player feels ready for this, they will be waiting for him to come back.
Five out of forty remain
The Győr team, ETO has some junior footballers from Ukraine. In March last year, forty young people from Kyiv who had fled the war were taken in and were given training opportunities in the club's teams matching their age.
Club director Miklós Tóth said that most of them have already returned home, and that five youngsters currently remain in Győr, although some of them are playing for other clubs. These five players are now being provided with meals. Only two of them are staying at the ETO academy, they have been transferred – the process was not complicated, and Tóth thinks the youngsters' attitude is good.
Austria is near, and yet far
Zelensky now trains individually, as well as with his team and envisages another year with his county team. Many people from Mosonmagyaróvár and the surrounding area commute to Austria for work and football, but the Ukrainian is not thinking about it. "My whole family lives in Mosonmagyaróvár, I don't want to move further west, especially as I would have to learn another new language then." He hopes that his time will come next year to step up to the next level…in Hungarian football.
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