In Ukraine, a girl is commentating on European Football Championship for the first time
The first Ukrainian football commentator Halyna Vinichenko calls the Euro 2020 matches.
Povaha writes about this, Rubryka reports.
The girl comments on the matches on Radio Promin. Her debut took place on June 15, when Hungary and Portugal played.
According to Halyna, she felt euphoric for the first time at 12 when the team she supported won. Then she saw the legendary English footballer Steven Gerrard and was delighted with his game. She decided she would support his team. There was a draw for a long time, and in the last minutes, Liverpool snatched the victory.
"I'm the only child in the family. Because my dad wanted a boy, he encouraged me to his passion for football in every way. For example, we ate ice cream, and my dad said: If you want a Dynamo-Kyiv match with me, I'll give you half of my ice cream. And when my mother was pregnant, I was kicking in her tummy, so everyone thought I would be a football player. It almost happened," Halyna shared her memories.
She also said that when Ukraine first reached the World Cup in 2006, Halyna started to have a real football mania: she began to follow football matches in detail, especially those where Ukraine played.
Before the first broadcast of the football match, Halyna had a mandrake. But everything went well, most of the listeners' feedback was positive.
The idea to hire a commentator for Euro 2020 belonged to the management of Radio Promin, and the colleague and broadcast partner Vadym Vlasenko proposed Halyna's candidacy.
"I was lucky that my commentary debut in football took place on the radio, where the audience is more non-judgemental. If hypothetically, I was called to commentate on a match broadcasting channel with a narrow football audience, I think I would get a lot of hatred. But the radio has a wider audience, so no one expected me to know the biographies of all the players by heart," she said.
Earlier, the girl believed that a woman commentating on football was something unreal. However, women referees used to be unusual, and now they're perceived as an organic part of football.
"I want to tell women who doubt that no matter how crazy your dream may seem, it can come true if you want it with all your heart and work hard. Yes, it may seem unrealistic at some point, but only when you are ready to forget about your dream, there will be an opportunity to make it true. I checked it on myself," Halyna says.
