Dutch professional footballers can be found in all corners of the world, from the spotlights of the major European leagues to the more adventurous employments on other continents. In the section About the Border speaks Football zone weekly with a player who is active abroad. This time attention is paid to Hennos Asmelash, who opted for a special adventure with the Ukrainian Ingulets Petrove in March.
By Chris Meijer
The first, and for now only, match of Hennos Asmelash for Ingulets Petrove was not the least. Trainer Sergiy Lavrynenko made a starting spot for the 21-year-old fullback in the game with Dynamo Kiev, which secured the first league title since 2016 in the Olympic Stadium in Kiev that day with a 5-0 victory. the few players of Ingulets Petrove with a satisfied feeling from the field. His direct opponent Carlos de Pena did not score and was replaced after an hour by Gerson Rodrigues, who also was unable to show himself. “Of course I was disappointed, but I could look back on a creditable game”, Asmelash smiles. “It was a wonderful experience. A big stadium, of course. Dynamo Kiev, together with Shakhtar, is the best team in the competition. They have not lost anything in 2021 and will also play in the Champions League next year. ”
Asmelash still has to be patient in his first weeks in Ukraine. “I came in in the last weeks of the league and the coach had already had his team, while I had been clubless for six or seven months and had not played a game for almost a year. In that respect, it is not really a surprise that I have little time to play. It is important for me to get competitive rhythm now and to train well, so that I can make it a good year next season ”, he says. Asmelash has played in the youth academy of ADO Den Haag since he was thirteen, grew there into a youth international and made his debut in the Eredivisie at the age of seventeen. After two seasons on a rental basis at TOP Oss, his contract expired last summer and he left ADO transfer-free.
Asmelash played 48 games for TOP Oss in the past two seasons.
“In the beginning I still had the feeling that something should come out of the Kitchen Champion Division, because I had played quite a few matches for TOP Oss. My agent has spoken with a number of clubs, but nothing came out in the end. ” It was then six difficult months for Asmelash, in which a number of things came by that he said he did not get the right feeling. He trained for himself for a while and then kept in shape at Jong ADO, until his agent hung up on the phone in February. “Take the plane to Turkey within two days, there you can do an internship at a club from the Ukrainian Premier League that is there on a training camp,” he was told. “After that it went very quickly. I went to Turkey, connected, played two exhibition games and then the coach said he wanted me. I talked about it at home and soon came to the conclusion that this could be a good step for my development. The other choice was to wait until the summer, when I probably would have had to do internships at clubs in the Kitchen Champion Division. ”
No, a few years ago Asmelash did not think he would make the switch to Ukraine now. “I didn’t know much about Ukraine, so I had to do my research,” he admits. Ingulets Petrove was promoted to the highest level last season and is on track to hold its own in the Ukrainian Premier League in its first year. “If you look at the league, you see that the top four are good teams that play in the Champions or Europa League. The club showed ambitions, a new stadium is also being built. That is almost finished, we often pass it. But in the meantime we will play in another stadium. Everything related to football is well organized and professional. You first look at the basics, whether everything is professionally arranged. Then to the players and staff. I quickly saw opportunities to make something of it abroad. ”
“Everyone in this environment is a fan of the club. Every now and then I am recognized, then people want to have their picture taken. I’m from abroad, so I get noticed more quickly. In the supermarket I was also approached with the question what I was doing here. I explained that I am a footballer and then we had a good conversation. Not many foreigners live in Petrove, ”Asmelash continues with a laugh. Petrove, a barely seven thousand city in southern Ukraine, is not the most vibrant place. The capital Kiev is almost six hours away. The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in the hands of the Russian-minded rebels is just as far away. Later I learned more about the war. We don’t go there, when we play away games we drive around those areas. We are not bothered by it, you will not notice it. I have been to Kiev a number of times, I have seen other cities: you don’t see it, also because we don’t visit those areas. ”
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Football Zone wrote a story earlier this season about Gerson Rodrigues, who now plays for Dynamo Kiev.
Although there may not be too much to do in Petrove, Asmelash is having a great time. “I have two teammates from Tanzania and Tunisia with whom I often hang out outside of football. In any case, I am someone who is more private, I like peace and quiet. It’s one thing that little English is spoken outside of football. It is not such a problem when I go shopping or when I go out to eat something. Furthermore, I don’t really do other things. Sometimes communicating in English is simply not possible, so you have to try it in a different way. Show with your hands or pictures. ” Asmelash calls the choice for Ukraine ‘a step outside its comfort zone’.
“Once you choose football and ignore other things, you know that such things are going to happen. You may not end up in Spain or France, but you can also get to Ukraine. It is different from what you are used to, but there are also opportunities for further growth here, ”he concludes. Asmelash has signed a contract with Inhulets Petrove until mid-2023. “If I become a basic player in this competition, I only see opportunities to grow. From the Netherlands it is easier to go to Italy, Spain or Germany, but the route is slightly different from here. ”