Dnipro duo and Yarmolenko head Ukrainian squad

• by Paul Kennedy  @pkedit, Feb 25, 2014

[UKRAINE-USA] Ukraine coach Mykhaylo Fomenko named a preliminary squad of 26 players for the Ukraine-USA friendly scheduled for March 5 in Cyprus. All but two players are from players based in Ukraine, where the Premier League is not scheduled to resume until this weekend after the winter break.

Top players in the Ukrainian squad include Yevhen Konoplyanka and Roman Zozulya, both of Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, and Andriy Yarmolenko of Dynamo Kiev. Konoplyanka has been linked to Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham in England, while Zozulya and Yarmolenko scored in the 2-0 win over France in the first leg of Ukraine's World Cup qualifying playoff series. A 3-0 loss in the second leg knocked Ukraine out of the World Cup, leaving it at No. 18 as the highest ranked team in the current FIFA rankings not going to Brazil.

Veteran midfielder Anatoliy Tymoshchuk, Ukraine’s all-time leader with 131 appearances, plays in Russia for Zenit St. Petersburg, while defender Andriy Pìlavskij plays for Maccabi Haifa in Israel.

Ukraine Roster:
GOALKEEPERS (3): Denis Boiko (Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk), Rustam Khudzhamov (Illichivets Mariupol), Andriy Pyatov (Shakhtar Donetsk).
DEFENDERS (7): Artem Fedetsky (Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk), Yevgen Khacheridi (Dynamo Kiev), Oleksandr Kucher (Shakhtar Donetsk), Evgeny Makarenko (Dynamo Kiev), Andriy Pìlavskij (Maccabi Haifa/ISR), Yaroslav Rakitskiy (Shakhtar Donetsk), Vyacheslav Shevchuk (Shakhtar Donetsk).
MIDFIELDERS (13): Roman Bezus (Dynamo Kiev), Denis Dedechko (Vorskla Poltava), Mikhail Galovskij (Metalist Kharkiv), Denys Garmash (Dynamo Kiev), Oleg Gusev (Dynamo Kiev), Dmytro Homcenovskij (Zorya Lugansk), Yevhen Konoplyanka (Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk), Mykola Morozyuk (Metalurh Donetsk), Ruslan Rotan (Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk), Taras Stepanenko (Shakhtar Donetsk), Sergiy Sydorchuk (Dynamo Kiev), Anatoliy Tymoschuk (Zenit St. Petersburg/RUS), Andriy Yarmolenko (Dynamo Kiev),
FORWARDS (3): Marko Devic (Metalist Kharkiv), Yevgen Seleznyov (Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk), Roman Zozulya (Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk)