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Andriy Shevchenko

Ukraine’s former striker Andriy Shevchenko was appointed national team head coach yesterday to replace the departing Mykhailo Fomenko, the country’s soccer federation said.

The 39-year-old, Ukraine’s record goalscorer who also played for Dynamo Kiev, AC Milan and Chelsea, was officially presented by federation president Andriy Pavelko at a news conference.

Meanwhile, Belgium sacked national coach Marc Wilmots after their highly fancied team of star individuals failed to advance beyond the quarter-finals at Euro 2016 this month, a senior Belgian Football Association official told a news conference yesterday.

The former Schalke midfielder, (47) had coached the Red Devils for four years, taking them to the quarter-finals of the World Cup in 2014 and seeing them top Fifa’s world ranking chart with a team built around Chelsea’s Eden Hazard and Manchester City pair Vincent Kompany and Kevin De Bruyne.

But a clueless 3-1 defeat to Wales in the Euro 2016 quarters left critics calling for Wilmots’s head and Belgian fans wondering what happened to the team that many had hoped would deliver the country’s first major trophy. — Reuters.