The famous coach was buried on the Alley of Heroes

out of the game

Yesterday, on the Alley of Heroes cemetery on the Zaporozhye highway in the suburbs of Dnepropetrovsk, the famous coach Evgeniy Kucherevsky, who died on Saturday in a car accident, was buried.

On Sunday, during the Dnepr-Arsenal match, a huge piece of black fabric with the inscription “We Mourn” was raised over one of the stands of the Meteor stadium. Yesterday he was held by Dnepr fans who came to say goodbye to Evgeny Kucherevsky at the Dnepropetrovsk Opera and Ballet Theater. The civil funeral service began at noon and lasted two and a half hours. It was attended by about twenty thousand people, among whom were the head coach of FC "Dnepr" Oleg Protasov, the first vice-president of the Football Federation of Ukraine Sergei Storozhenko, the president of the Professional Football League of Ukraine Ravil Safiullin, and. O. Chairman of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional Council Nikolai Shvets, Dnepropetrovsk Mayor Ivan Kulichenko and players of the Dnepr football club. Almost everyone left the large theater hall with tears in their eyes.

In a conversation with a Kommersant correspondent, Sergei Storozhenko said that Evgeny Kucherevsky was a great lover of life. “Evgeniy Kucherevsky was harsh in his statements, but it was very easy to communicate with him. Ukrainian football has lost a great coach,” he says. “He was a man who always, in any situation, spoke only the truth. It was difficult to find a person who was easier to communicate with - you could always share any problems with him, he knew how to listen and understand,” recalls Ravil Safiullin. “This is a big loss for the club, for the city, for the country, but we will continue its work,” Oleg Protasov told a Kommersant correspondent.

Of the government officials present at the civil memorial service, only Ivan Kulichenko expressed a desire to talk to journalists. "This is a great loss for football. The greatest coach of our time has died," he said. Mr. Kulichenko promised that in September, at a session of the city council, a proposal to name one of the streets of Dnepropetrovsk after Evgeniy Kucherevsky will be considered. He also stressed that he is in favor of renaming the main Dnepropetrovsk football stadium "Meteor" to the "Kucherevsky Stadium".

Not everyone was able to come to the cemetery - just over three hundred people fit into the eight buses traveling behind the hearse. The coffin was carried by eight players of the current Dnepr squad, with former team player Gennady Litovchenko walking nearby. Evgeny Kucherevsky was buried on the Alley of Heroes of the cemetery on Zaporozhye Highway (in the suburbs of Dnepropetrovsk) next to the founder and general director of the Southern Machine-Building Plant, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, Yuri Makarov.

IVAN KRASIKOV, Dnepropetrovsk

Dnepropetrovsk said goodbye to Evgeny Kucherevsky