It’s a far cry from recent Ukrainian sides lead by the legendary Valery Lobanovsky whom often fielded a team with only one non-Dynamo Kyiv player - Serhi Popov of Shakhtar Donetsk.

But Blokhin has had little choice but to look elsewhere after the massive financial muscle of Dynamo and Shakhtar have seen them raiding worldwide in a bid to bring quick-fire success. This has had a knock on effect to the National Teams, so much so that Blokhin is indebted to Dnipro boss Yevhen Kucherevsky for the nucleus of his current inexperienced side.

Kucherevsky has been orchestrating a bold attempt at prising away the dominance enjoyed by the big two, and is doing this by adopting a solely ‘Ukrainian Only’ approach to his playing staff.

And the move has worked, much to Blokhin’s relief.

Now the new national boss can call on a number of Dnipro players and the approach adopted by Kucherevsky is one that Ukrainian Football Federation Vice President Serhiy Storozhenko is keen to press.

“Dnipro’s success is down to years of careful planning. There are many foreign players who are taking the places of Ukrainian’s and are simply not good enough.

"At present the Ukrainian league has no bans on the amount of foreigners, but it is time to start considering just such a limit for the benefit of Ukrainian football at both national and youth levels.

"The FFU fully supports players whose ability is higher than that of our Ukrainian counterparts, but we must make this move to protect the development of our youth.”

The Federation also believe that breaking the dominance enjoyed by both Shakhtar and Dynamo will improve the fortunes of the fledgling national side.

“We hope that with more funding, more sides can challenge for trophies in Ukraine. Our personal hope is that up to six or seven clubs will be competing, thus breaking the dominance of Shakhtar and Dynamo. I believe this will happen on two to three years” promises Storozhenko.

The FFU realise the need for a more competitive league structure. The implications of this could at last see the national team achieve qualification for a major tournament.

For so long the ‘nearly men’, Storozhenko and countrymen will hope that Blokhin and his new look side are at the forefront of just such a successful drive.