The current Karpaty manager Pavel Kucherov reiterated today in an interview that Macedonian international Martin Bogatinov will be the starting keeper heading into the 2012/13 season.
Pavel Kucherov served as the interim manager of Karpaty for several games last season, but was replaced at the start of the second half by Volodymyr Sharan, who was then quickly sacked due to bad results, and veteran coach Yuriy Dyachuk-Stavytskyi who served in the manager role until the end of the season. Karpaty barely avoided the drop by finishing one spot above the relegation zone, in 14th place out of 16 teams.
One of the problems for Karpaty last season was the instability at the goalkeeper position. The five coaches who managed Karpaty last season played musical chairs at goalkeeper and that negatively affected the mindset of the team. However, this offseason, the team has decided to part ways with Andriy Tlumak, and enters next season with a clearcut #1 keeper in Martin Bogatinov.
In an interview with a Ukrainian newspaper, Kucherov talked about his plans at goalkeeper: "The number one keeper is Martin Bogatinov, who performed very well at the end of last season. We are satisfied with him. Besides Bogatinov, we have two younger keepers in Oleksandr Ilyuschenkov and Roman Mysak, players who grew up in our youth system."
The 26-year-old Bogatinov also seems to be the preferred starter of manager John Toshack for the senior national team. Martin started several important qualifiers for Macedonia when playing regularly for his club team last season, but then lost his place later on when he was relegated to the bench for Karpaty. However, now that he is the undisputed starter for Karpaty heading into next seasom, he is likely to remain the first choice keeper for Macedonia as well. In his last game for the national team, Bogatinov kept a clean sheet against Portugal in the friendly played on 26 May.
