{"id":1358453,"date":"2026-02-16T17:44:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T15:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/zinchenko-out-for-the-rest-of-the-season-ukraines-national-team-lost-its-defender-ahead-of-key-2026-world-cup-playoff-matches\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T17:44:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T15:44:28","slug":"zinchenko-out-for-the-rest-of-the-season-ukraines-national-team-lost-its-defender-ahead-of-key-2026-world-cup-playoff-matches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/zinchenko-out-for-the-rest-of-the-season-ukraines-national-team-lost-its-defender-ahead-of-key-2026-world-cup-playoff-matches\/","title":{"rendered":"Zinchenko out for the rest of the season: Ukraine&#8217;s national team lost its defender ahead of key 2026 World Cup playoff matches."},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"121\" data-end=\"384\"><strong><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Ajax<\/span><\/span> Amsterdam footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko will no longer play this season and will miss the 2026 World Cup qualifying playoff matches as part of the Ukrainian national team.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"121\" data-end=\"384\"> The official website of the Dutch club reported this.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"386\" data-end=\"573\"> Ajax noted that a medical examination revealed the need for surgery. The operation will be performed soon, after which the 29-year-old will undergo a lengthy rehabilitation period.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"575\" data-end=\"944\"> Zinchenko injured his knee on February 14 in a Dutch league match against <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Fortuna Sittard<\/span><\/span> . It was his second game for Ajax, which the Ukrainian joined in January. He spent the first part of the season on loan at <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Nottingham Forest<\/span><\/span> , England, and is currently under contract to <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Arsenal<\/span><\/span> .<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"946\" data-end=\"1158\"> The defender previously played for <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Manchester City<\/span><\/span> , <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">PSV Eindhoven<\/span><\/span> , and Russian club Ufa. He began his football career in Radomyshl, Zhytomyr Oblast, and is a product of Shakhtar&#8217;s academy.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1160\" data-end=\"1235\"> Zinchenko played 75 matches for the Ukrainian national team and scored 12 goals.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1237\" data-end=\"1554\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\"> Earlier, <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Serhiy Rebrov&#8217;s<\/span><\/span> team also lost <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Roma<\/span><\/span> forward <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Artem Dovbyk<\/span><\/span> to injury. Furthermore, <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Genoa<\/span><\/span> midfielder <span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Ruslan Malinovskyi<\/span><\/span> will not play in the playoff semifinals due to disqualification.<\/p>\n<div class=\"full-post__content font-rules\">\n<p> Also follow <strong>&#8220;Pryamy&#8221;<\/strong> on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pryamiy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Facebook<\/a> , <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/prm_ua\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">X<\/a> , <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/+rtV4dxYu2_cyNjVi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Telegram<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/pryamiy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Instagram.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ajax Amsterdam footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko will no longer play this season and will miss the 2026 World Cup qualifying playoff matches as part of the Ukrainian national team. The official website of the Dutch club reported this. Ajax noted that a medical examination revealed the need for surgery. The operation will be performed soon, after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1101769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76871,76872,76875,76895],"class_list":["post-1358453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2","category-news-feed","category-other-news","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1358453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1101769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1358453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1358453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}