For the second time in the team’s history Phoenix’ players raised the Kharkiv Futsal Cup above their heads. For the second time, too, the competition is Children and Youth Sports School Volna.
Today’s success in one of the city's main tournaments could have been the third one, hadn’t the boys succumbed to Valki Children and Youth Sports School in a series of penalty shoot-outs in the 2018/19 Cup Final. Back then, by the way, Phoenix beat Volna in the semi-final. Ever since 2017 Phoenix and Volna countered each other in every Kharkiv Cup competition.
To face each other this year both teams had to win their semi-finals first. Oleksandr Kuzmenko and Kostyantyn Tatarenko’s players coped with their task quite easily, beating Kolos of Snezhkov 9:0.
Phoenix, having started practicing for the High League Futsal Championship, where it will represent Kharkiv Oblast among Ukraine’s top clubs, in its thoughts is already playing in the country’s main futsal tournament. So, in its semi-final match against Torpedo, the team with players superior in age and height, Phoenix spent exactly as much energy as was needed for a comfortable victory. As early as in the first session Maksym Dolhulia and Mykhailo Soldatenko with their accurate shots carried the play: with 2 points advantage the team started playing the score, with an eye to the final.
Phoenix could have scored several times in the first half if it wasn’t for the crossbar coming to Torpedo’s rescue twice.
Early in the second half the boys had another striking two minutes scoring two more goals: after a brace by Mykhailo Soldatenko Artem Shevchenko brought the score to 4:0.
It was Phoenix who initiated the next dangerous chance at its goalmouth, and that's when Torpedo won back one point. In the attack to follow, though, Danylo Boldyzhev managed to restore the status quo. The opposition did cut the lead, though, thanks to individual actions by Ilya Rakhmail, but this was the end of chances for Torpedo at Phoenix’ net.
In the final match, as the coaches of both teams had previously agreed, Danylo Dudin and Artem Shevchenko did not participate. The place of the former in the second four-player squad was taken by Danylo Boldyzhev and the absence of the latter prevented Serhii Hrytsenko and Yurii Vashchenko from using the three four-player squads formation, as they used to do in the recent matches.
In this match the violets took a rather quick lead after an accurate kick by Demyd Yevsiukov, the skipper, in minute 6 of the first half. In the game of equals, Phoenix still had a slim advantage, creating a higher number of dangerous chances at the opposition’s net and making twice as many goal attempts (12 vs 7). Volna countered with rather dangerous attacks and the violets, carried away by the attacking actions, were not always able to catch up. Eldar Bratchuk, having played both games beyond all praise, was doing his best, but found himself powerless against Roman Hospodenko’s accurate shot in minute 13 of the first half.
In the second half the game followed the same pattern: Phoenix was more into the attacking style, while Volna tried to catch it by counterattacking. The goals ratio in the second half was about the same it was in the first half: 16 vs 7.
Both teams were afraid of making a mistake, with such a dangerously close score and a history of games where one accurate kick in the second half happened to be decisive. The nervousness could be an explanation to such inaccurate goal attempts. About one third of all the shots were on target in each of the teams (10 out of 28 in Phoenix and 5 out of in the opposition). Frankly, despite the fact that in the second half only one shot of the opposition hit the crossbar of Volodymyr Lazeba’s (Eldar Bratchuk replaced over the break) goal, he had more than enough work to cope with.
Phoenix was very close to scoring. In the second half the ball hit the goal posts of Oleh Ahafonov’s net as many as three times and once it hit the crossbar. Hose were Volna players who scored the decisive goal, though. Phoenix’ long attack ended up with a pass to Marksym Dolhulia, who dribbled it shifting towards the centre of the penalty box but lost control of it eventually. Volna wingers edged Maksym away, turning the threat away from their goal. Bohdan Ivanchenko, though, at the last moment decided to opt for a corner kick deflected the ball into his own net.
Volna played the five-a-side formation at the end of the match, showing decent gameplay. In the very last minute Oleksandr Voitov sent the ball into Volodymyr Lazeba’s goal, the latter showing good reaction turning the ball away and right to Roman Hospodenko, who failed to hit the empty corner of the net. That is what the match ended with and the final whistle signified Phoenix’ second victory in the Kharkiv Cup.
The team does not have much time to celebrate, though. The violets are preparing for the Championship of Ukraine, the very prospects of which in the conditions of quarantine are very vague. At the same time, preparation for the tournament is not going at all as planned - instead of working on the parquet, the team is forced to practice in the open area of the Children and Youth Sports School No 2. The team will be puzzling over the proper preparation for the main tournament of the season tomorrow, though. Today the violets are celebrating!