One of the main gifts for Phoenix’ 5th birthday was made by the organisers of the Kharkiv Open Futsal Championship, who divided the teams of our age group by the level of play. As a result, the League of 2006 turned out to be perhaps the strongest in the history of our participation in the City Championship and some of the matches promise to be a matter of principle.
The new league is now ‘staffed’ not only with the teams whose players were born in 2006 but also with the children of an older age category. So, Phoenix, having been short of matches with strong opposition receives high-level sparring partners in abundance.
The rules of Ukraine’s Championship tend to change from season to season with a shift towards extending the limit of the children who are one year older than the eligible age group. And if previously such older players, born no earlier than 1 September 2005 in our case, were two (actually, three in the previous season), this season onwards they can be as many as the applicant wishes. Moreover, the threshold date of birth for eligible sportsmen in our case has now shifted towards 1 August 2005.
One could contemplate the pertinence of such initiatives of the Association as long as one wishes, it is now obvious, though, that any team aspiring for good results on the national level is now bound to play against older players on the local level. Otherwise, it will turn to be uncompetitive and the children will stop growing both as sportsmen and physically.
Phoenix' players now know from their own experience what the deficit of such sparrings leads to. The team once lost to Olympic of Ilichovsk, nearly 100 % staffed with such older players, in the semi-finals of Ukraine’s Cup U15. Phoenix has forever been struggling to stand up to the opposition, superior in age and physique.
That is why, the kick off match of the Kharkiv Championship, happening right on the day of the team’s 5th anniversary, was a gift in this sense. The first team of Valki Sports School plays in the first league of Ukraine’s Football Championship U17. All its players, except Anatolii Naku, were born in 2005 and Roman Semenenko - in 2004. Isn’t it an ideal competitor for a start?
The game itself in its ‘plotline’ was reminiscent of the final match of the Summer Futsal Tournament, we lost to Valkovians 0:4. Again, the light greens started to play defense first, allowing our team to control the ball on their half of the field, protecting the goalmouth alright, though. Phoenix was on its guard a bit too much and avoided sending the ball into the net even when it was the best possible decision. Viktor Detyuk’s players were waiting for the right moment, for the moment violets should make a mistake. Vitalii Tachev could have made a good use of one such mistake, having noted an inaccurate pass and engaging with a one-to-one with Volodymyr Laseba. Our keeper acted flawlessly.
Generally, the equal play in the first half was thought to end in a draw, two minutes before the break, though, in a scramble at our goalmouth Vitalii Tkachev managed to kick the ball out of Laseba’s hands and pushed it into the net.
The violets had a whole half ahead to counteract. That’s exactly what they started off with. The chances at Anatolii Naku’s goalmouth became more frequent, their implementation left much to be desired, though. Despite twice as many goal attempts on the goal of Valkovians than in the first half, only two of them were on target and turned out quite harmless. The real chances to even the score were missed by Ivan Konkov and Artem Shevchenko.
In minute 26 there was a brace by Vitalii Tkachev and soon, just like in the recent Summer Futsal Championship Final, Phoenix switched to the ‘five-a-side’. The team failed to succeed in this one, too, rolling the ball at a safe distance from Anatolii Naku, not giving an edge to the game. One of our attacks ended up in an inaccurate pass towards the goal of the opposition and Anatolii Naku sent the third ball into Phoenix' empty net, finalizing the score of the match.
Despite the loss we find the match quite timely and significant. It revealed to the coaches what skills they should hone in their players during practice sessions to prepare for Ukraine’s Futsal Championship’s High League.
Phoenix’ younger team, in its turn, beat FC Electron 4:1 yesterday in a kick off match of the Kharkiv Championship.