Phoenix beats Urahan from Ivano-Frankivsk on the first game day of the fourth round of the Ukrainian Futsal Championship. In fact, this match, in the way the game went, repeated the recent meeting of the teams within the Ivano-Frankivsk round. Our team showed exactly the same powerful and confident first 20 minutes, and the same nervous second half, where the violets were more into defending the goal than into building on the success.
To compete for the medals of the main tournament of the country, Phoenix needs to not just commit more than five game feats in five matches this week. The team also needs to count on the slips of its direct competitors. Given that Phoenix will have to play with all three teams that were ahead of us in the standings at the start of the tour, frankly, the task looks very difficult.
By the time the match against Urahan began, it became clear that the victory would bring the violets the second prize. The reason for that was the defeat of Chorne More from Odessa, unexpected to some extent, in the penalty shootout series in their match with Energia form Lviv, as well as the completely unexpected crushing defeat of the Youth Sports School Respect beaten by llichivets from Chornomorsk. The leaders, No 25 Youth Sports School from Kyiv, were also close to losing points, with the Rivne team lacking just a bit in order to succeed.
The round, in which the overdogs were losing point after point, was alarming. Phoenix decided not to rely on pure luck, though, getting down to business from the very first minutes of the match. The high pace, maintained by both four player squads of the violets, was readily supported by the Ivano-Frankivsk team, making this match, perhaps, the fastest and most dynamic one in the round. The same as two months ago, Phoenix scored three times in the first half of the match, not least thanks to the great performance of Mykyta Bodnar, who scored twice and assisted to Danylo Dudin. Volodymyr Lazeba's confident and reliable play at the goal made it possible for Phoenix to finish the first half with zero goals conceded.
What happened in the second half, was well expected by Serhii Hrytsenko and Yurii Vaschenko. Urahan started playing much more actively, resorting to pressing and switching to a game with five outfield players from time to time. The main danger was coming from Dmytro Fedik, the team leader, who was very difficult to stop. It was he who sent the first goal into Lazeba's goal.
The goal scored by the guest team boosted its confidence. At times our players found it hard to keep up with the fast-paced competition and were unwilling to be beaten, therefore, started to commit fouls.
Four minutes before the end of the match Phoenix managed a great free kick at Urahan’s goal and Danylo Boldyzhev increased violet’s lead to three goals again.
Two minutes later the sixth foul the team committed turned into a ten-meter kick into our goal. Eldar Bratchuk, though, having replaced Lazeba, first saved Dmytro Fedik’s kick in a great way and then handled well Roman Boitsan’s follow-up.
Urahan did make up for one ball with Roman Boitsan’s efforts. Oleksandr Vons' players managed to gain nothing more, though. This victory, together with the slips of Odessa and Manevychi players took Phoenix to the second current place in the standings, which looks quite unstable given the schedule of the remaining matches and the absolute unpredictability of the results of the Championship.
Nonetheless, the first and important victory in the final round of the Championship was gained to the joy of Phoenix’ fans, who after a long break, had a chance to follow the matches live.