Soon after being accepted to FIFA and UEFA as a full member in 1992, Ukraine started its preparation for its first game. At first the head coach of the team was planned to be Valeriy Lobanovskyi, but at that time he had a current contract with the United Arab Emirates. Thus, the first manager of the team had to be chosen among members of a coaching council which consisted of Anatoliy Puzach (manager of Dynamo Kyiv), Yevhen Kucherevskyi (FC Dnipro), Yevhen Lemeshko (Torpedo Zaporizhzhia), Yukhym Shkolnykov (Bukovyna Chernivtsi) and Viktor Prokopenko (Chornomorets Odesa). Later, they were joined by a native of Donetsk Valeriy Yaremchenko (Shakhtar Donetsk). At the end a circle of candidates narrowed down only to three names: Puzach, Yaremchenko and Prokopenko, the latter who eventually became the head coach.