The loss of five points in two yesterday's matches, and even more - the team's play itself, hurt the pride of the violets. One could complain about a lot of missed hundred percent chances in the game with Crystal, with Phoenix’ made 22 goal attempts in the first half, about two own goals, the failure of the 'lucky' system of penalty shootouts, where we shoot accurately, and the goalkeepers help out. Let's be frank - if it had not been for Konkov's ball a few seconds before the final whistle, Phoenix would not have received even one point yesterday.
The outcome of this meeting stunned the team so much that in the second match of the day, with Chornomorets, the boys were not their usual selves. As a result, instead of the familiar spectacular confrontation between the Odessites and our team, the audience saw, in fact, only one team.
The ‘harvested’ one point out of six hurt the tournament ambitions of the Kharkiv team. The comments of Sports School Respect of Manevychy added fuel to the fire and, we are sure, there will be no need to motivate Phoenix for tomorrow's closing match of the tour with the Manevychy team.
The main task of the coaching staff on Wednesday night was to rebuild the team, first of all, psychologically, so that two unsuccessful matches did not cause a long slump. So, the evening meeting of the team, at which mainly words of support were pronounced, turned out fruitful.
The boys themselves understood that it was possible to make up for the 'black Wednesday' only by defeating the reigning champions of Ukraine. Moreover, Phoenix players knew they needed a victory in regulation time, otherwise, the lag from the Kievites would have grown to 9 points. To be aware of what you need is one thing, but to beat a team that has never lost to anyone in regulation time is quite a different thing. There was nowhere to retreat, the guys wanted to prove, first of all, to themselves that yesterday's losses were rather an annoying mistake. That is why the match with the leader of the tournament turned out to be some sort of a point of honor for Phoenix players.
Sports School No 25 had no losses in the Chornomorsk round and in Ivano-Frankivsk, even though it brought two matches to penalty shootouts, it still remains the leader of the tournament standings. In the first place this is due to the physically strong and quick players with a strong kick and also due to excellently organised play.
There was no question of playing open football. Phoenix returned to the defensive tactics it used and perfected in the two previous draws of the Ukrainian Cup. This predetermined the changes in the four player squads - the coaches focused on the fastest and strongest, primarily on the defensive side. We had to endure and wait for our chance to come.
It turned out to be a long wait. The Kievites made 72 goal attempts! An absolute record or, more precisely, an anti-record in terms of numbers. Another thing is that the high concentration of the players of both our four-player squads, their discipline and very often selflessness prevented the opposition from creating insoluble problems at Lazeba's goal. Our goalkeeper played one of his best matches today. The fact that out of 28 shots on target only two ended up in the goal is his great merit.
Phoenix made as little as 18 goal attempts, 9 of them were on target. To our luck the implementation was on the level in such an important match.
Having countered the first onslaught of the Kievites, the boys began to slowly build on their attack. It was not at all easy to do under pressure. In this situation, much depended on an ability to competently play the set pieces. In minute 6 one of the set pieces worked when the ball happened to be out of play. Konkov kicked in from the sideline, Shevchenko missed, Boldyzhev extended the pass to the oncoming Khodatskyi with his heel, and Phoenix' skipper scoreв scored the first goal.
The goal did relieve the strain but to a small extent. Moreover, three minutes later Dmytro Suvorov managed to restore the status-quo. The teams left for the break with their score being even.
In the second half, the pressure of the Kiev team did not diminish, but even rare and still quite promising counterattacks by the violets began to look more dangerous. In minute nine, Dudin won a counterattack against Olexander Pastukh, rushed along the sideline to the goal and gave an accurate pass to Yevsyukov, who ran into the box and was immediately knocked down by Mykyta Chervinskyi. Konkov's spot-kick was flawless. So Phoenix took the lead again.
Danylo Dudin, undoubtedly one of the main characters of the match, could well have increased the score just a few minutes after the penalty kick scored by Konkov. More precisely, Danylo did score, but the goal was not counted in. Lazeba kicked in to Bezruk, who gave a one-timer to Dudin on the flank, Danylo struck without getting close, and the ball hit the floor deflected off the crossbar. The moment was so dynamic that the referees could not determine whether the ball went down behind the goal line or not. After the match, a video repeat of the moment, in the video shot by Yuri Vasiliev, Phoenix' cameraman, revealed there had been a goal.
Fortune nevertheless paid us off, returning the favour to the boys for their patience in defense. The third ball of the team came out just for a feast. Khodatskyi won a dog-fight against Yurii Tukalevsky, Bezruk moved the ball to the other flank, where Boldyzhev, having beaten Mykyta Chervinskyi in an excellent manner, worked a give-and-go with Bezruk and gracefully scored our third goal.
With the score being 3:1 the Kievites switched to the game with 5 outfield players and the pressure on our goal grew bigger. Four minutes before the end of the match the pressure materialized into a handsome goal, scored by Oleksandr Pastukh, the skipper of Sports School 25. Fortunately, the line of the match was drawn.
Phoenix gained one of the most crucial victories in its history, becoming the first team in the history of the current Championship of Ukraine which beat the reigning champion in regulation time. After the match Oleksandr Kryvenda, Kievites’ coach noted, ' Winners are the ones who aimed to win most’. The boys in violet jerseys knew absolutely well how right the coach was.