Yehor Yarmoliuk has been an unused substitute in all of Brentford’s top-flight matches this season. While he is desperate to make an impact, the 19-year-old is also just happy to be in west London after escaping the war in Ukraine 18 months ago.
The central midfielder joined Brentford from Ukrainian top-flight side Dnipro for an undisclosed fee in July 2022 — five months after his homeland was invaded by Russia. He started out with the B team but, by November 2022, made his debut for the senior side in a Carabao Cup tie against Gillingham. A hamstring injury in February, which ruled him out for the rest of the 2022-23 campaign, curtailed his progress but he has recovered and is pushing to make his Premier League debut.
Our 25th #BrentfordB debutant
🇺🇦 Congratulations, Yehor Yarmoliuk 👏👏 pic.twitter.com/gHZx4b3czy
— Brentford FC (@BrentfordFC) November 9, 2022
“It’s close,” Brentford’s head coach Thomas Frank told The Athletic before the international break. “He was fully fit when we started pre-season, but he was still catching up in terms of rhythm and making decisions naturally. I’ve seen more good positive actions from him and he has caught my eye.
“He is a No 8. He is a very good pressing player, has a little bit of bite in his pressure and his technical abilities are good in terms of passing. I like him. He’s been on top of my mind in a couple of games (to bring on as a substitute) but it didn’t fall his way for whatever reason.”
Yarmoliuk’s chances of being involved when Brentford host Burnley this Saturday have increased after he helped Ukraine’s Under-21s beat England 3-2 on Monday. England won the Under-21s European Championship in the summer and had not lost a match since June 2022, but Illia Kvasnytsya’s 94th-minute strike secured Ukraine victory in Kosice.
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The match was held in Slovakia due to the war in Ukraine. The country’s U21 squad have used their profile to raise funds for troops back home and have purchased three cars, radios, sets of tactical headphones and other equipment. The Ukrainian Association of Football (UAF) is auctioning a Brentford shirt signed by Yarmoliuk and the proceeds will be put towards purchasing an ambulance.
Dnipro, which is where Yarmoliuk grew up, is one of the largest cities in the country and has been repeatedly targeted by Russian missiles. Attacks in March and April 2022 destroyed the Dnipro International Airport while energy facilities and water supplies have been damaged too. It is a world away from where he now lives on the banks of the Thames.
“I was at home in Dnipro when the war started,” Yarmoliuk tells The Athletic. “It was a scary moment for me, my family and the whole country. In the first few days I moved back in with my family and I lived there for four months. I tried to keep everything from my mind. When I got the chance to join Brentford I was happy. I had never been to England before but it was my dream to play in the Premier League.
“I haven’t had the chance to go back to Ukraine — it’s dangerous. My family and friends are still there and I speak to them every day. We are waiting for the war to finish. We just need people to keep talking about it. We can’t forget about (the war) because it’s still bad in Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian Premier League was suspended in February 2022 and cancelled in April. Yarmoliuk was unable to train or play competitively, yet Brentford’s recruitment department were aware of his talent.
They collect data on 85,500 players in different leagues around the world and monitor 5,000 more closely. Yarmoliuk was flagged by their system after he became the second-youngest player in Ukrainian top-flight history when he came off the bench in Dnipro’s 2-0 defeat to Vorskla Poltava in June 2020 at the age of 16 years and 140 days. Yarmoliuk made his debut for Ukraine’s Under-21s in a 4-1 victory over Malta.
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“We have a top Eastern European scout who knows Yehor and was backing him to be a top talent,” technical director Lee Dykes told The Athletic in the summer for the audio documentary Access All Areas: Brentford. “We couldn’t do anything until he turned 18 because of the rules in place, but we kept on top of it.
“The more we watched him and escalated him through the process, by showing him to B team and first-team coaches, everybody was saying the same thing — there is massive value in this player. We didn’t know where he would fit in the midfield, but we were sure he had the criteria for most of those positions and that he was going to be a good Brentford player.”
Yarmoliuk had never visited England and could not speak the language. He quickly developed a strong relationship with Mariia Manirko, one of the club’s employees, who fled Ukraine shortly after the war broke out. Manirko used to work for Shakhtar Donetsk as the head of the stewards department and holds a role in Brentford’s media team. Manirko helped Yarmoliuk to rent a flat with his girlfriend, buy a car and translates The Athletic’s questions during our interview.
Yarmoliuk occasionally speaks to his team-mates about the war in Ukraine. He praises club captain Christian Norgaard for his support and says he is the player he tries to learn the most from. Yarmoliuk has even taught a few Ukrainian phrases to Yoane Wissa and B team goalkeeper Ben Winterbottom.
It took time for Yarmoliuk to adjust to life in England, but on the pitch he quickly made a good impression. He describes his debut against Gillingham, when he replaced Frank Onyeka in the 72nd minute, as “the best moment of my life”.
Yarmoliuk scored in three consecutive games for the B team until he suffered that hamstring injury which ruled him out of the rest of the season including the Under-21 European Championship. Ukraine progressed to the knockout stages and beat France 3-1 before they lost to runners-up Spain in the semi-final. “It was a bad moment, but the club helped me a lot,” Yarmoliuk says. “I worked in the gym every single day and was waiting until I could get back on the pitch. Before the injury I was in good form and now I’m close to that level.”
🙌 Looking forward to Yehor Yarmoliuk returning to full fitness! #BrentfordFC pic.twitter.com/WnMSOCZJoy
— Brentford FC (@BrentfordFC) June 5, 2023
While he was out injured, Ukraine organised a friendly against Brentford at Plough Lane, AFC Wimbledon’s stadium, and were based at their training ground for a week. Yarmoliuk spent time with Everton’s Vitalii Mykolenko and Mykhailo Mudryk, who Brentford tried to sign on multiple occasions before he joined Chelsea in January 2023 for an initial £62million.
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“I couldn’t miss this chance,” Yarmoliuk says. “I spoke with everyone and I really enjoyed it. They supported me because it wasn’t an easy time when I had the injury. I didn’t ask (Mudryk why he didn’t join Brentford), but maybe later.”
Yarmoliuk was promoted from the B team into the senior squad in June and signed a new contract until 2028. The 19-year-old travelled to the United States in pre-season for the Premier League Summer Series and came off the bench in the matches against Fulham and Aston Villa.
Yarmoliuk’s only appearance this season was against Newport County in the second round of the Carabao Cup. He was on the bench for their 1-0 defeat to Arsenal in the third round and swapped shirts with Ukraine and Arsenal left-back Oleksandr Zinchenko.
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Brentford have only won once in the top flight this season and are light in central midfield with Mikkel Damsgaard, Josh Dasilva and Shandon Baptiste injured.
It appears a matter of time before he achieves his dream of playing in the Premier League.