Former Werder coach Viktor Skripnik takes over a new Ukrainian club in his home country in the middle of the war.
First division club Worskla Poltava from central Ukraine announced Skripnik’s commitment on July 1. So far, the 52-year-old Skripnik trained the Conference League participant Sorja Luhansk from the east of the country. However, Luhansk and the club’s alternative headquarters in Zaporizhia have been a war zone since the Russian attack on Ukraine. Poltava is currently not. FK Worskla played against Hannover 96 in the 2011/12 season in the Europa League (1:2, 1:3). Despite the war, the Ukrainian league wants to start playing again in the summer.
Former Ukraine international Skripnik was a player at Werder Bremen from 1996 to 2004 before becoming a youth coach. From October 2014 to September 2016, Skripnik coached Bremen’s Bundesliga team. His assistant coaches at the time were Florian Kohfeldt and Torsten Frings.
Skripnik coached Luhansk
In 2019 he took over the team from Luhansk in his home country. Since the city has been one of the areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014, Skripnik’s team has played and trained in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia for the past few years, which was also attacked by Russian troops right at the beginning of the war.
“He took five or six players into his home. Together they take shelter in his basement when bombs fall“, said former German junior international Joel Abu Hanna in March of the “Bild” newspaper. The 24-year-old played for Sorja Luhansk from 2019 to 2021.