His family returned to their native Ukraine and the town of Chernihiv when his father retired from the army and got a job as an engineer at a local radio plant.

Kuznetsov started playing when he was eight years old with local football schools before signing for the city's professional club Desna Chernihiv in 1980, continuing to improve his technique and tactics under the guidance of coach Yukhym Shkolnykov.

[7] A year after his arrival another Ukrainian, his former Dynamo Kyiv teammate Oleksiy Mykhaylychenko, joined the club, but they only played in 20 matches together across three seasons.

[8] He moved on in 1994 after a four-year stint badly hampered by injuries, with Basile Boli coming to Glasgow to take his place in the squad.

He moved to the coaching staff at Dynamo Kyiv and later had several roles with the Ukraine national team, including as a member of the staff with the senior squad that reached the quarter-finals of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, and taking charge of various youth age group teams over the next decade.