The Ukrainian footballer who fled a war and won the league in Ireland

Vasyl Tropanets has plenty of memories of playing with his old team-mate Viktor Serdeniuk – one in particular.

A 22-year-old striker from near Odesa, Vasyl had been playing for Ukrainian second division side FC Balkans for a few years by the time Viktor (27) joined the club. “I remember we had a preseason match against a team from Denmark, and it was a tough game, and at one moment the opponent’s player played very dangerously against me, but the referee did not call a foul. And at the same moment Viktor played even harder against him and received a red card.”

Cue “a massive brawl”. Vasyl recalls that “the match was finished in advance of schedule”.

FC Balkany Zorya has since dissolved, just one more piece of collateral damage wrought by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and both Viktor and Vasyl are again facing into a new football season, but on the other side of the Continent.

In the past year, Viktor has driven across Europe with his wife, baby son and their dog. Just eight months later he finished the summer season with a League of Ireland (LOI) Premier Division winner’s medal, surely the only Ukrainian refugee to do so anywhere in Europe, cavorting around the pitch with Shamrock Rovers as the Dublin side celebrated a three-in-a-row win.

And as Viktor’s season was ending in celebration last October, Vasyl made his arrival into Dublin – one of almost 75,000 Ukrainians to have arrived here since the conflict began.

They could easily have found themselves playing together again. Viktor was released by Rovers when his short-term deal came to an end and has since signed for second-tier Longford Town, where Vasyl had trials. But while Viktor is now displaying his tattoos on Longford’s social media accounts, Vasyl has signed up with Bluebell United, the Leinster Senior League team with a storied history. With both now living in the Greater Dublin Area, it is the kind of reunion neither man could have imagined just a year ago.

“So last season was very full of events, both good and bad,” Viktor says. At which point: full disclosure. When Viktor and his family crossed Europe, it was to stay at our house in west Cork, arranged through a mutual friend. In total they spent eight months with us, a spell which took in Viktor training for a month with Cork City FC, a similar stint at Cobh Ramblers, a job working in a fish factory, a road crash that finished off his beloved car, and then that unexpected opportunity with Rovers.

Viktor’s season was downright unusual, but in other ways it was a typical refugee experience – perpetual concern over what was happening at home, worries over family, getting used to a new country and a different language, social security numbers, medical cards. The surreal nature of the past year was best summed up when, after Rovers lost against Molde in a Europa Conference league game in Norway, he had to catch a later flight back to Dublin because he didn’t have the required visa that would have allowed him to travel through Belfast with the rest of the squad.

Viktor’s wife, Natalia, says they have been contacted by other players back home, pondering whether they too could continue their careers in the LOI. Yet due to the imposition of martial law, that is unlikely.

According to the Professional Footballers Association of Ireland (PFAI), Viktor is the only professional Ukrainian player in the league. Vasyl came to Ireland hoping to follow in his footsteps and having been a student in Bulgaria, he found it easier to travel to Dublin, where he spent a night in the Citywest Hotel and two weeks at another location before moving in with a host.

“He is also a football fan,” Vasyl says of his host. “He supports Tottenham. Fortunately for him I’m not a fan of Arsenal, and fortunately for me he is not a fan of Man United as I’m a fan of Liverpool and we became good friends.”

Vasyl’s arrival in Ireland has cemented his friendship with his old team-mate, but for both, Irish football has not been without its challenges. Viktor played for Ukraine at underage level and had a spell in the top flight in his native country, but he said playing for Rovers represented a high standard.

“The approach to training, recovery and the attitude towards football is very similar [to that in Ukraine],” he says. “But the style of football in Ireland is clearly more physical.

“When the team competes in the European cups, in the championship and the country’s cups, it is completely different. This is a very tight schedule, it used to be that there were more games per week than training.”

Viktor’s stint at Rovers was symbolic for many reasons. “The debut was emotionally very bright for me, I was really waiting for this moment, it was also the first match as a spectator for my son,” he says, referring to Alex, now aged one.

Vasyl’s self-training on YouTube means he has excellent English, even if “the [Irish] accent is tough to understand first time”, while Viktor admits that the language barrier was an issue. Despite this he was popular with his team-mates and embraced life at Rovers, even if most of his appearances were from the bench. The celebrations after winning the league, he says, were “very cool”.

“I was very happy at that moment,” he says. “Probably only after a few days I understood what happened. I am happy that I wrote not only my name but also Ukraine in Irish history.”

For their former coach back at Balkany, Denys Kolchin, the presence of both Viktor and Vaysl in Ireland is “a surprise”. He is clearly still fond of his former charges.

“I know that they are good players and they have big talent and he [Viktor] can build a career in Ireland – Vasyl too, because Vasyl is younger than Viktor and is a good man and good player,” Denys says.

Both are still in contact with their old team-mates. The war is never far away. “When the air raid warning sounds, the matches are stopped and all football players go to bomb shelters and can stay there for several hours. These are the realities of football now when there is a war in the country,” Viktor says.