Ukrainian national team winger Aleksey Gutsulyak has officially become a player of Shymkent's Ordabasy. The club announced the transfer on Instagram, according to infohub.kz.
The agreement with the 28-year-old player is for two years. The newcomer will wear the number 7 shirt for Ordabasy.
Gutsulyak joined the Shymkent club as a free agent. Since July, he had been without a team after leaving Zhytomyr's Polissya. Previously in Ukraine, the footballer played for Dnipro-1, Chernihiv's Desna, and Lviv's Karpaty. He spent six months in the system of Spain's Villarreal. For the national team, the winger has scored six goals in 16 matches.
Gutsulyak's transfer value is estimated at three million euros. This makes him the most expensive active player in the Kazakhstan Premier League (KPL). He has moved into first place, displacing Astana's Bosnian midfielder Ivan Basic, whose market value is estimated at 1.5 million euros.
"Thank you for the welcome! It's very pleasant to be here, I was received wonderfully. The people here are kind, everything is like family. We felt that right away when we flew in for a couple of days to meet everyone and see the city. That's when we decided to stay here. I see that Shymkent is interesting, it's developing — after all, it's the third city in Kazakhstan. I'm sure it has a great future ahead, including in football. I spoke with many people, and they told me that the fans here are the best. The bar has already been set high — they won the championship and the Cup. Now the main goal is European competitions. I think the whole team will do their utmost to go as far as possible in European competitions and for Shymkent to host the Champions League," Gutsulyak said after the transfer.
Earlier, Ordabasy officially announced the resignation of Moldovan Andrei Martin as head coach. Under him, the Shymkent side achieved the first domestic double in their history. The club and the specialist failed to agree on a new contract.