Viktor Viktorovych Kovalenko ( uk, Віктор Вікторович Коваленко; born 14 February 1996) is a Ukrainian professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

club

Spezia La Spezia (, or , ; in the local Spezzino dialect) is the capital city of the province of La Spezia and is located at the head of the Gulf of La Spezia in the southern part of the Liguria region of Italy. La Spezia is the second largest city ...

on loan from

Atalanta Atalanta (; grc-gre, Ἀταλάντη, Atalantē) meaning "equal in weight", is a heroine in Greek mythology. There are two versions of the huntress Atalanta: one from Arcadia, whose parents were Iasus and Clymene and who is primarily known ...

. He represents the Ukraine national team.

Club career

Shakhtar Donetsk

Kovalenko is product of youth team of

Shakhtar Donetsk Football Club Shakhtar Donetsk ( uk, Футбольний клуб «Шахтар» Донецьк , short nickname "miners") is a Ukrainian professional football club from the city of Donetsk. In 2014, due to the War in Donbass, the club was f ...

. He made his début in the

Ukrainian Premier League The Ukrainian Premier League ( uk, "Українська Прем'єр-ліга", ''Ukrayinska Premier Liha'') or UPL is the highest division of Ukrainian annual football championship. As the Vyshcha Liha ( uk, Вища ліга, ''Top League'') ...

for Shakhtar in the game against

Vorskla Poltava FC Vorskla Poltava ( uk, ФК «Во́рскла» Полта́ва ) is a Ukrainian professional football club based in Poltava that competes in the Ukrainian Premier League, the top flight of Ukrainian football. History Kolos Poltava The club ...

on 28 February 2015. On 9 May 2015, he made his first direct contribution for the first team when assisting the fifth and sixth goals for Shakhtar in a 7–3 win over

Hoverla Uzhhorod Football Club Hoverla Uzhhorod ( ) was a Ukrainian professional Association football, football club based in Uzhhorod. Following the end of the 2015–16 Ukrainian Premier League, 2015–16 season it was expelled from the Ukrainian Premier Leagu ...

. On 20 February 2020, Kovalenko scored the winning goal in Shakhtar's 2–1 win against Benfica in the first leg of their Europa League Round of 32 clash. On 17 October 2020, Kovalenko scored twice in the first 18 minutes of Shakhtar's 5–1 hammering of

FC Lviv FC Lviv ( uk, ФК «Львів», pl, FK Lwów) is a Ukrainian professional football club from the city of Lviv, that competes in the Ukrainian Premier League. While the first president of FC Lviv Oleksandr Didenko insisted that FC Lviv of 1 ...

in the

Atalanta

On 1 February 2021, with less than six months remaining in his contract with Shakhtar, Kovalenko signed a four-and-a-half-year deal with

club

for a reported fee of €700,000. He made his debut for the club on 21 March, as an 87th-minute substitute for fellow countryman Ruslan Malinovskyi in a Serie A 2–0 win at

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Northern Italy, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and the ...

Loans to Spezia

On 8 August 2021, Kovalenko joined fellow Serie A side

on a

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...

-long loan. On 2 August 2022, he returned to Spezia on another loan, with Spezia holding an obligation to buy if the club avoids relegation.

International career

Kovalenko was called up by

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

to play in the

2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup The 2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the twentieth edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup since its inception in 1977 as the FIFA World Youth Championship. The competition took place for the first time in New Zealand, the third time on Oceanian soil after ...

in New Zealand. He scored two goals in a 6–0 victory over

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

and added a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

against the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

to secure 3–0 win at

North Harbour Stadium North Harbour Stadium is a stadium situated in Albany, in North Shore City, New Zealand. It was opened in 1997, after nearly a decade of discussion, planning and construction. Rugby union, association football, rugby league, and baseball are a ...

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

, as the team reached the round of 16. He won the Golden Boot of the

with five goals.

Career statistics

Club

International

Honours

Shakhtar Donetsk *

: 2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20 *

Ukrainian Cup The Ukrainian Cup ( uk, Кубок України) is an association football national knockout cup competition run by the Ukrainian Association of Football. The competition is conducted almost exclusively among professional clubs. Since the 2003� ...

: 2015–16, 2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19 *

Ukrainian Super Cup The Ukrainian Super Cup ( uk , Суперкубок України) is an association football game of the Ukrainian Premier League in traditional super cup format that acts as the grand-opening for every new football (soccer), football competiti ...

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

Individual * FIFA World Youth Championship Golden Shoe:

Best young player: 2015–16

References

External links

* *
Viktor Kovalenko
at Topforward {{DEFAULTSORT:Kovalenko, Viktor 1996 births Living people Sportspeople from Kherson Ukrainian footballers Association football midfielders FC Shakhtar Donetsk players Atalanta B.C. players Spezia Calcio players Ukrainian Premier League players Serie A players Ukraine international footballers Ukraine under-21 international footballers Ukraine youth international footballers UEFA Euro 2016 players Ukrainian expatriate footballers Ukrainian expatriate sportspeople in Italy Expatriate footballers in Italy