Over a week in Chornomorsk in the matches of the away starting round of the Ukrainian Futsal Championship, Phoenix has gone down to an uncommon 9th position in the standings of the City Championship. The same as the team’s position in the standings plummeted the temperature. Despite the government's multiple change of plans and decisions related to the quarantine restrictions and the week-end lockdown being cancelled, the matches of the Kharkiv Championship are still being held on the open sites.
To Phoenix, as you know, this year’s City Premiership is important not in terms of results but in terms of preparation for the games of its age group in the main national tournament. Especially beneficial for the team is the fact that most of the rivals surpass us in age and physique. Train hard fight easy, as they say.
By an ironic quirk, though, the City Futsal Championship, which, no matter how paradoxical, is held outside in the wintertime, to the team of Serhii Hrytsenko and Yurii Vashchenko has turned out to become a pain in the neck rather than an asset. To Phoenix it is not only about having to adapt back to the synthetic turf after having smoothened its play in the indoor facility. The main thing is, were the games held indoor, they would add to the goals and objectives of the club. Current task, though, is to accomplish the round with minimal losses. In the first place, with a minimal harm to the health of the boys, who played in sub-zero temperature, which will definitely have dropped by the team’s next matches in the tournament that usually lasts until late March.
AFU could address some of the whys, its regional offices being responsible for the tournaments locally.
To somehow remedy the situation Phoenix offered its indoor sportsground and its training time to host the matches of the Championship. To Serhii Skorohid’s, the head coach’ of Sports School No 12, honour, he was the first one to accept the offer. As a result, the following two matches of the City Championship will take place in the Sports Centre of Kharkiv National University of Pharmacy the coming Wednesday. Phoenix will counter the first and the second team of Sports School No 12.
As part of the City Premiership Phoenix and Serhii Skorohod’s teams are supposed to play at least four matches. The first game took place today against the fourth team of Sports School No 12, in nominal terms, and in reality, against Sokil, so familiar, whose players have formed the core of our today’s opposition. Serhii Skorohid and Kostyantyn Lisonoh steered the play of the team.
For the sub-zero temperature match Phoenix decided to step into the field dressed in the training wear. The priority task is to set off for the matches of the second round of the Ukrainian Championship at full strength. Out of different reasons Maksym Dolhulia, Artem Shevchenko and Denys Mikhno were unable to help their teammates today. For Vlad Khrypchuk it was his first but an appearance in the field since late September. Danylo Khodatskyy started his December matches with a skippers’ band.
The play was going well for our guys even though the opposition looked quite good and unmistakably motivated. The first half kept Eldar Bratchuk busy and the second one kept Volodymyr Lazeba occupied, partially, though, Phoenix players entertained themselves and the coaches with their own efforts. Everything might have turned out to be less peaceful for us, had the players of Sports School 12-4 more accurate in their goal attempts. Out of twenty shots only eight hit our crossbar.
The violets surpassed the opposition only slightly in that component. The goal attempts, though, were considerably more numerous: 33 and the number of shots on target was higher: 16. At the final stage of the game our guys showed better creativity, eventually scoring five times into Artem Rybin’s goals with two own goals – one for each of the goalies.
Phoenix gained its second victory in the tournament and made an inconsiderable move up the standings, having one unplayed match in reserve.
Phoenix’ younger team looked quite good, countering one of a dozen teams of FC Metal, registered with the 2013 League of the City Championship. Being close to defeat with a score 1:3 our youngsters managed to even the score, failing to keep the tally draw, though. As a result, a slim disadvantage of 3:4 and a highly optimistic game.
The coming matches our elder team will play as soon as 9 December, two in a row – against Sports School 12-1 and Sports School 12-2. Held with no spectators, both matches will finally take place indoors.