Yevhen Cheberko Has Found a Home With the Columbus Crew | OneFootball

27-year-old defender Yevhen Cheberko is playing the best soccer of his career. We catch up with the Columbus Crew defender to discuss his origins in the sport, finding a home in Ohio, and how he’s looking to help guide the Crew to a deep run in the MLS Cup Playoffs. 

To say that the Columbus Crew limped their way into the MLS Cup Playoffs wouldn’t be an overstatement. In their final 10 games of the MLS season, the club won just two, drawing and losing four apiece in that stretch.

However, a win on Decision Day jumped the club from ninth place to seventh, avoiding a Wild Card round matchup and setting up a Hell is Real derby showdown with FC Cincinnati in the best-of-three first round.

In recent years, the Crew have been the class of MLS, creating a formula that has led to successfully developed talents and trophies alike. And despite the relative down year, the wealth of experience throughout the club, in addition to manager Wilfried Nancy, make the Crew a dangerous matchup for anyone in the playoffs.

Photo by Jason Mowry/Getty Images

Playing a role in the Crew’s recent success has been Yevhen Cheberko, a 27-year-old Ukrainian that has been a reliable force in the team’s central defense.

Cheberko’s soccer journey began with UFK Dnipropetrovsk before making the move to FC Dnipro in 2014. At the time, Dnipro were one of the biggest clubs in the nation alongside Shakhtar Donetsk and Dynamo Kyiv, and it was at Dnipro where Cheberko refined his skills and sowed the seeds for a successful playing career.

“I always wanted to be a soccer player,” Cheberko said in an exclusive Urban Pitch interview. “I started my professional career when I was midfielder and idolized midfielders like Andrés Iniesta and Alessandro Del Piero when I was growing up…I was looking more for the guys who provide assists or score goals.”

Cheberko broke into the Dnipro first team and made 15 appearances before being forced to depart due to the club’s cataclysmic financial situation. He was one of five Dnipro players who joined Zorya Luhansk in 2017 (including current Real Madrid goalkeeper Andriy Lunin) following Dnipro’s relegation from the Ukrainian Premier League. Shortly after, Dnipro folded completely after being forced to declare bankruptcy by FIFA due to unpaid compensation for players and managers.

“The turning point came when I moved to Luhansk when I was still young,” Cheberko said. “I signed my first contract at 18 and realized, ‘Okay, maybe I can make some money out of that, maybe I can help my family and achieve my goals and dreams and do what I want to do.’

“It’s not like you’re working hard in the office or in management, but you need to provide for your family. Here, you like the sport, you want to play, and you also want to provide for them with your salary.”

While Cheberko continued to compete in the Ukrainian top flight, he was now doing so in a different position: center back. After initially biding his time on the fringes of the squad as both a midfielder and a left back, he would finally break into the Luhansk starting lineup in 2019 and emerge as a vital cog in the back line, racking up 33 appearances across all competitions in 2019-20, including five in the UEFA Europa League qualifiers.

“I played three to four years as a midfielder until my coach at Zorya Luhansk, Yuriy Vernydub, changed my position,” Cheberko said. “He pushed me back in the middle of the season because of some injuries and said, ‘OK, we can try you there, because I see your potential.’ And then next season, when they changed the coach, and once Viktor Skrypnyk came there, he immediately said, ‘I see you in the center back position, because we will have the possession of the ball, and I need your vision and your first pass. Those six months were the turning point as Vernydub changed my position and I started to play there and become familiar with this position.”

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Yevhen Cheberko (@cheber98)

Pretty soon, it became evident that Cheberko was too good to be playing in Ukraine. It’s why, after racking up 61 appearances for Zorya Luhansk, Cheberko departed his motherland and joined Austrian side LASK Linz.

While he looked set to ply his trade under now-Blackburn Rovers coach Valérien Ismaël, the French manager departed in the middle of the summer, and Dominik Thalhammer took the reins.

“It was a tricky situation, because Ismaël called me and invited me to join the team, and we spoke with him before I signed the contract,” Cheberko said. “He told me, ‘We want you, we see your abilities.’ I had spoken to the coach and sporting director and felt that they were supporting me, but by the time I went there after the 2019-20 season, there was a different coach. It’s why I didn’t play as much as I could’ve, as well as individual problems, which is why I didn’t perform to my level. But the different coach played a role, that’s for sure.”

Cheberko struggled for minutes in Austria, making just seven appearances before deciding to call it quits on his time in Linz. However, the autumn of 2020 wasn’t all negative for Cheberko — he would make his senior debut for the Ukrainian national team, playing 45 minutes in a 7-1 friendly defeat to France.

Four months later, Cheberko made the move to Croatian side Osijek on an 18-month loan that was soon made permanent. He didn’t take long to establish himself as an instrumental figure in the back line, making 61 appearances and helping Osijek finish second in 2020-21 and third in 2021-22 and 2022-23, before departing Europe and joining MLS side Columbus Crew in June 2023.

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Yevhen Cheberko (@cheber98)

Cheberko was gradually phased into the Columbus team in the second half of the 2023 campaign, making 12 appearances — including in the final three games — as the Crew made it all the way to the MLS Cup final, where they defeated LAFC on home soil to secure their third league championship. He built on his momentum in 2024 by emerging as a key figure at the back, making 39 appearances across a long, hard-fought season which also bore silverware in the form of a Leagues Cup trophy.

Tough losses in the Campeones Cup and CONCACAF Champions Cup finals, in addition to an early first-round exit in the MLS Cup Playoffs put a dampener on the season, but for Cheberko, it was clear he was fitting in both on and off the pitch.

“I feel like I’ve found my home in Ohio,” Cheberko said. “I’ve settled here, because people have allowed me to just be me. I don’t need to pretend, I can be just be myself. I can do some stupid things and tell some funny jokes, but people don’t judge me, they just let me be. I don’t need to put the mask on, so that’s helped me and my personal life on and off the pitch.

“I have some experience now, and maybe my style fits me more than in other teams, so that’s why I’m playing more. But I just feel like it can be home in the future. I don’t want to look three to four years in the future because something can always happen in your life. You’ve just got to stay in the present and try to enjoy while you can.”

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Cheberko has built on his progression this season, playing 34 times for the Crew and also making his first Ukraine appearance in nearly four years, playing 66 minutes in a June friendly against New Zealand.

However, Columbus failed to reach the Leagues Cup knockout round, and also lost to LAFC in the CONCACAF Champions Cup round of 16. In order to avoid suffering their first trophy-less season since 2022, the Crew will need to win the 2025 MLS Cup.

“We have a decent group of people, we have a good atmosphere, despite the results that we’ve had recently,” Cheberko said. “I don’t know what we can change, we just try to work hard and change the small details, because these details are more important than the big picture in the playoffs.

“Every team wants to win and do well, but it’s the small details — how you defend, how you press, how you attack, how you get the best shape before the playoffs — that can play a role.”

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Columbus Crew (@columbuscrew)

After bouncing around from Ukraine to Austria to Croatia, Cheberko is now finding a new lease on life in Ohio with the Columbus Crew and emerging as a vital contributor in the center of defense. As he approaches 28 years of age, Cheberko is playing the best soccer of his career and putting his best foot forward both as a starter and as a substitute.

“I obviously want to come back into the starting XI and play every game, like every player, but I’m not desperate,” Cheberko said. “I feel like a couple of performances from my side wasn’t good enough, I’ve had a couple of mistakes, and that’s what maybe caused me to drop out of the XI. We have a lot of players who want to play the same as me, so you need to refocus and work even harder and fight for your place back. Football is a competitive sport, and you’ve just got to try your best. Maybe I will come back to the starting XI soon, but only time will tell.”