Artem Kravets, the former striker for Dynamo Kyiv and the Ukrainian national team, is the subject of the latest retrospective material by FanDay.net. Despite being plagued by injury, Kravets played in top tournaments and scored many memorable goals. Dynamo Kyiv had owned the rights to Kravets for 13 years since his debut, but he only played 144 games for the club due to persistent health problems. Kravets played for several other clubs, including Stuttgart, Granada, Kayserispor, Konyaspor, and Sakaryaspor, before unexpectedly announcing the end of his professional career last winter due to health concerns.
Our next retrospective material is dedicated to the former striker of Dynamo Kyiv and the Ukrainian national team Artem Kravets, who could not fully reveal his sniper talent due to persistent health problems, but managed to play in the top tournaments and scored many memorable goals.
Dynamo Kyiv has owned the rights to Artem Kravets for 13 years since his team debut. They say that the permanent contract extension was personally lobbied by Igor Surkis, who really liked the way the talented football player played.
However, the injury-prone striker has only played 144 games for the Kiev club in a dozen years – three seasons is enough for a key player to reach this level.
FanDay.net looks back at the career of the talented sniper who was destined to become one of the biggest disappointments for Dynamo fans. Today Artem is 34 years old.
He studies “excellently” and is a fan of Kaka
Artem Kravets was born on June 3, 1989 in Kamenskoye. Once, one of the friends of the future striker invited him to play football in the neighbor’s yard, where, ironically, the coach of the Nadezhda-Vagonmash (Dneprodzerzhinsk) Sports School was. After the game, Artem was invited to the football section.
For the first two weeks, Kravets went to practice at the other end of town, in secret from his parents. And already at the age of 13, a talented boy, together with his father, came to Kyiv to watch at the Dynamo school. Six months later, he was brought to the academy of the capital club.
“After consulting with my father, I decided that it was time to try my hand at a more serious level than the children’s football school. Moreover, according to my coach’s comments, I have potential, – recalls Kravets. “Playing for Dynamo was my childhood dream, which has come true.”
Unlike many of his colleagues, Kravets studied well at school – if not for one “nine”, he would have been an excellent student.
Having passed all levels of youth football, on June 17, 2007, Artem made his debut in the first team, replacing Balazs Farkas of Hungary during the break of the match with Kyiv Arsenal (1:0).
By the way, for Dynamo Kravets always played under number 22. This choice is conscious, because Artem tries to imitate his idol, the Brazilian Kaka, in everything. He also celebrates goals in the same way – he raises two index fingers.
The peak of his career came while working at Dynamo Rebrov
Continuously, he began to play in the first team under Yuri Semin. Under him, he scored his first goal for the Kiev club, hitting the gates of the Dnieper (4:0). The promising forward was really the talk of the town in February 2009, when his double at the Mestalla helped Dynamo past Valencia and into the UEFA Cup 1/8 finals.
However, when Artem Milevsky and Ismael Bangura were in good shape, Kravets did not sit on the bench or did not enter the application at all. The struggle for a place in the lineup was not helped by constant injuries, which kept Artem out of action for three years.
In the summer of 2013, the striker moved on loan to Arsenal Kiev, where he scored three goals in 11 games in six months. Back at Dynamo, he played for the reserve team, losing out to Brown Idea and Duemersi Mbokani.
The sale of the Nigerian player and Congo’s injury allowed Kravets to become the main striker of Dynamo, which was led by Sergei Rebrov. The inspired striker scored against Metalista (2:1) in the second game, and two weeks later he scored his first and last hat-trick in the UPL in the match with Ilyichevets (4:1).
That tournament was our birthday boy’s career best today. He scored 15 goals in the Ukrainian Championship and two more in the Ukrainian Cup and Europa League.
Legionnaire bread and unsuccessful attempts to return to his original club
In the next season, there is no effect of the previous performance. As a result, in January 2016, Artem returned on loan. This time – in Stuttgart German. In six months in the Bundesliga, he managed to score one goal and make two assists.
In Kyiv, the striker was still not counted, and therefore he was loaned out again. During the year at Granada Spain, Kravets played 26 games in which he scored five goals and provided two assists. It was strange that he scored one of the goals against Malaga, which was defended by his former teammate Denis Boyko.
After working the last six months of his contract at Dynamo, Artem joined Turkey’s Kayserispor as a free agent, where he spent two and a half seasons (63 matches, 21 goals).
In August 2020, Kravets returned to Dynamo again, but this time he stayed at his home club for only one month. Mircea Lucescu released him on the field only once – for 23 minutes in the championship match with FC Lviv (3:1).
Artem rushed back to Turkey, which he loved, where he played one and a half goals for Konyaspor and another five months for Sakaryaspor, who played in the second division.
Last winter, the 33-year-old Kravets unexpectedly announced the end of his professional career.
“Considering my health and the situation in this country, I have no desire to continue playing,” said the player. – There is an offer, but now my family needs attention so I can be with them. In the last few years, I have had two surgeries on my back, this is a big risk. I also want to live after football.”
Only Shevchenko and Yarmolenko are better in the national team
Despite being prone to injury, Kravets played a total of 23 matches for the Ukrainian national team. He made his debut in the exhibition match with Romania (2:2).
In the 68th minute, Yuriy Kalitvintsev sent Artem as a substitute instead of Alexander Aliev, and in the penalty shootout the striker helped our team to win (4:2) with his accurate shot. He scored his first goal of the match in a friendly with Georgia (2:1).
In the 2016 European Championship qualifiers, he left his signature at the gates of Luxembourg (3:0), Belarus (3:1) and North Macedonia (2:0). In the 2018 World Cup qualifying tournament, he scored against Turkey (2: 2) and Finland (1: 0).
He scored his last goal in a blue and yellow T-shirt in a test match with Saudi Arabia (1: 1) on March 23, 2018. The last time he entered the field as part of the blue and yellow team was in Lviv’s legendary qualifier for Euro 2020 with Serbia ( 5:0).
Kravets averaged 0.3 goals per game in the national team jersey. Among players who have played more than 20 games, only Andriy Shevchenko (0.43) and Andriy Yarmolenko (0.4) can boast of the best results.
As a result of the quarantine, he almost broke up with his wife
Artem met his future wife Anna on the Internet in 2008. On December 3, 2010, the couple got married.
On November 25, 2017, the Kravtsov family became twice as large due to the birth of twins Vladislav and Ivan.
At the end of 2020, the couple broke up, but after a while they resumed their relationship. It is strange that they did not have time to dissolve their marriage due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We have our own history, which is affected by distance and quarantine. Somewhere misunderstanding each other in the distance. At this stage, we have a good relationship. We have a family, children. We are not thinking about divorce,” said the footballer.
Also read: The first goal in the UPL was scored by Dynamo, and Seleznev called it to the “fight”: Shakhtar’s pupil and the player from Kiev Karavaev – 31
