Ihor Nichenko

Playing career

Nichenko was born on 18 April 1971 in Kherson. He studied at the Kherson Children-Youth Sport school 1 with instructor Vasyl Kravchenko. Nichenko started his career in the early 1990s in Khmelnytsky at its team in the 1989 Soviet Second League. Next year he was drafted to the top league's Metalist Kharkiv where he could not find his touch. In 1992, he returned to his hometown Kherson, joining Krystal. After an impressive start at the club in the Ukrainian First League, Nichenko was signed by the Kryvbas club at the end of 1992. In Kryvbas he set a record for the goals scored in a game and the goals scored in a season (12), finishing third amongst the best scorers. At the top level of Soviet and Ukrainian competitions, he played over 100 matches with 87 in the Ukrainian Premier League.

Since 1995 and for the next 10 years, Nichenko played in various Hungarian clubs such as Ferencvaros, Dunaferr, and others. There he became the two-time champion with those teams. He was also the top scorer of the Hungarian championship in 1996–97 for Ferencvaros, scoring 18 goals, and becoming the first foreign player ever to score the most goals in a season in Hungary. He played more than 250 games in Hungary scoring almost 100 goals. Since 2005, he has been signed with Ukrainian clubs, but has not played any games officially.

Coaching career Upon retiring, Nichenko stayed in FC Krystal Kherson working together with Yuriy Martynov as the head coach. In 2007, he joined the local amateur club, Sigma Kherson, as a staff coach and since 2008 has been its head coach.