It isn’t exactly outrageous to suggest that there aren’t a wealth of well-known Ukrainian footballers. Whilst plenty of people from the former Soviet block have made their name in the likes of athletics, boxing and gymnastics, there are only a handful of footballers who have emerged from Ukraine over the years. So it is that Mykhailo Mudryk looked to follow in the footsteps of Andriy Shevchenko and, to a lesser extent, Andriy Voronin in heading to the Premier League and becoming a star. He even signed for the same club as one of them, with Schevchenko also having played at Stamford Bridge during his career.
Who is Mykhailo Mudryk?
Born on the fifth of January 2001 in the Ukrainian city that was known as Krasnohrad at the time, Mykhailo Petrovych Mudryk was brought up as an Orthodox Christian. He was taught his faith by his grandmother and it would carry forward into his career, with the player often taking religious icons with him to matches. Although he has numerous tattoos, it is the one that says, “Only Jesus” that he says matters to him the most. Despite playing professional since 2018, it took until 2022 before he was given his senior call up to the Ukrainian squad. Perhaps because of the trickiness of his name, he is known as ‘Misha’ to friends and his coaches.
Becoming a Footballer
The playing career of Mudryk began in 2010 when the nine-year-old was signed to the youth system of Metalist Kharkiv. He remained there for four years, eventually moving to the Academy of Dnipro in 2014. Becoming known for his skills and his quick burst of pace, Mudryk remained with Dnipro for two years before he attracted the interest of one of the country’s biggest clubs, Shakhtar Donetsk. He was signed by them in 2016, becoming part of the club’s Academy before playing with the Under-21s. That was during the 2018-2019 season, doing enough to earn a promotion to the first team early in the campaign.
His debut for Shakhtar came on the 31st of October 2018, playing in a 1-0 win in the Ukrainian Cup as a 17-year-old. Initially, the player struggled to get regular minutes for Shakhtar Donetsk, so a decision was taken to send him out on loan. Considering which side he would eventually sign for in London, there was an irony to the fact that his first loan club was called Arsenal Kyiv. He arrived in the February of 2019, playing ten minutes but failing to get on the scoresheet. In the summer of 2020 he went out on another loan, this time with Ukrainian Premier League side Desna Chernihiv, helping them qualify for the Europa League third qualifying round.
Making it in Ukraine; Catching Chelsea’s Eye
On the eighth of January 2021, Mudryk went back to Shakhtar Donetsk and played in three Ukrainian Premier League games before heading to the club’s reserve team. It was during the 2021-2022 season that he began to feature more prominently for the first team, especially once Roberto De Zerbi had been brought in as the manager. He was a coach who was known to be willing to trust younger players, giving Mudryk a new mentality. The manager considered him to be one of the club’s best young prospects, staying, “If I don’t bring him to a high level, I will consider it a personal defeat”.
Mudryk’s Champions League debut came on the 25th of August 2021 when he replaced Manor Solomon with eight minutes of normal time remaining. The game went to extra-time and in the 114th minute his cross went off Ruben Aguilar into the net, putting Shakhtar through on aggregate. His first goal came a few weeks later in a 5-0 win over Mariupol, then on the third of December he achieved four assists in a 6-1 win. In both November and December he was named the Player of the Month for the club, so on New Year’s Eve the player agreed a contract extension with Shakhtar Donetsk that was designed to keep him there until 2026.
For Mudryk, things were just beginning to click into place, only for the Ukrainian Premier League to be suspended due to the imposition of martial law in the country as Russia was threatening to invade. Eventually they did, meaning that the season was curtailed. Mudryk ended the shortened campaign with two goals and nine assists, being named the Player of the Year for the club. Football resumed for the 2022-2023 season, seeing Mudryk score his first Champions League goal and get two assists. More goals in the following matches resulted in some of Europe’s biggest clubs paying attention, one of which was Chelsea.
Signing for the Stamford Bridge Club
Having scored seven goals and got six assists in 12 matches, Mudryk was named both the Ukrainian Football of the Year and Shakhtar Donetsk’s Player of the Year for 2022. It was perhaps this that finally made Chelsea pull the trigger on his signing, agreeing to pay a Shakhtar Donetsk and Ukrainian Premier League record fee of an initial amount of €70 million for him. The deal had the potential to rise to €100 million if certain performance-based metrics were reached. The previous record payment was made by Manchester United to bring Brazilian player Fred to Old Trafford, with the Red Devils paying £47 million for him.
Mykhailo Mudryk has finalised his move from Shakhtar Donetsk after agreeing personal terms with the Blues. 🤝
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) January 15, 2023
The signing of Mudryk by Chelsea drew some headlines, not so much because of his arrival in the Premier League but rather because of the length of his contract. He was brought in as part of the Chelsea owner Todd Boehly’s method of avoiding Financial Fair Play restrictions, signing players for huge sums of money but on long contracts, meaning that the transfer fee could be amortised over a longer period of time. As a result, Mudryk signed for Chelsea for eight-and-a-half-years, drawing attention to Boehly’s methods and earning criticism from the majority of the rest of the clubs in the English top-flight.
Playing for the Blues
The player’s Chelsea debut came on the 21st of January 2023, just six days after signing for the club. It came against one of the the London club’s more modern rivals in Liverpool, but at a time when both clubs were struggling for any sort of form. At a cold Anfield, the two sides struggled to create much of note, with then-Chelsea manager Graham Potter introducing Mudryk in the second-half. He put in a lively display, certainly giving people the impression that he might be able to be developed into a dangerous player as he made efforts to create more than just the disallowed goal that Kai Havertz had netted early on in the game.
He started his first game for the Blues in another 0-0 draw, this time against Fulham. It took until the following season for him to get onto the scoresheet, finding the back of the net at Stamford Bridge thanks to a long-range effort in a Premier League tie with Arsenal. On the 19th of December, Mudryk scored a stoppage-time equaliser in the League Cup against Newcastle United, which resulted in the game finishing 1-1 at the end of normal time. That meant that the match went to penalties, which Chelsea won 4-2 to send them into the semi-finals ahead of a final against Liverpool, which they lost 1-0 after extra-time.
Poor Reception & Positive Drugs Test
It is fair to say that Mykhailo Mudryk hardly set the Premier League on fire after signing for Chelsea. He also got mixed reviews from his own teammates during his first couple of seasons at Stamford Bridge, with Wesley Fofana saying that he was ‘faster’ than Kylian Mbappe and perhaps the speediest player that he had gone up against. That felt like damning him with feint praise, whilst Ben Chilwell was even more cautious in any praise offered. He said, “With Mudryk, I see endless bags of potential that hasn’t been fulfilled yet”. Chelsea supporters, meanwhile, reportedly nicknamed him ‘Ukraine Bolt’ in reference to his speed being his only attribute.
On the 17th of December 2024, it was reported that Mudryk had tested positive for a banned substance. The club confirmed that the Football Association had contacted it over an ‘adverse finding in a routine urine test’. He was provisionally suspended by the FA as a result, but was quick to deny that he had knowingly taken a banned substance. He said that it was a ‘complete shock’, saying that he would work closely with his team to ‘investigate how this could have happened’. Having last played for Chelsea on the 28th of November and missing the five matches that followed, there was a sense that he was unlikely to be missed by the Blues.