Like the famous hero of English folk ballads, the futsal players of Kharkiv Phoenix occasionally act like inhabitants of Sherwood Forest and deprive the favorites of their points, giving them to the underdogs. The previous occasion was the final round of the Championship of Ukraine, where having defeated No 25 Sports School and Chorne More, the team lost to Respect from Manevichi, a more modest team. The audience saw a similar trick today in the match against Temp-ZAES-Tavria. The nice team from Energodar showed a good play in the previous days, failing to earn any points, though. Young football players from Zaporizhzhia Oblast hardly expected they would earn their first and for now only credit point, in a dead rubber match against the silver medalist of the Ukrainian Championship, but it was exactly what happened.
Tempo began the game with active pressure, immediate attacks and attempts to force the goalkeeper of the violets to come into play. Phoenix played the defensive style and, seemed to have started off with a lack of composure, making mistakes in simple situations when playing the ball. By the middle of the first half, the game calmed down to explode with a dagger attack Bratchuk - Boldyzhev - Bodnar, which did not end up successfully only thanks to the efforts of Tempo's keeper.
By the end of the half, the difference in the tactical patterns of the teams became obvious: Phoenix escaped the pressure confidently, playing one-two and opening into free zones, while Temp relied on throws into the penalty area of the opposition and long-range shots. Roulette, performed by the Kharkiv team, ended in a productive kick by Danylo Boldyzhev, who fired an accurate medium range shot into the near corner. The last minutes before the halftime break, there was a lull in the field.
In the second half, Tempo's play scheme did not undergo any noticeable changes, while Phoenix started putting more intense pressure on the opposition in the opponent’s half of the field. A miraculous chance was organized by Khodatskyi and Soldatenko, Shevchenko failed to push the ball into the goal, though. The most active player in the field was Oleksander Bezruk, who twisted the spines of Tempo's defenders in the style of Eden Azar. In the middle of the second half, the online broadcast was interrupted for literally one minute, to resume to the score of 2: 0: Artyom Shevchenko added another goal to his scorer list. Two minutes later, Khodatskyi and Shevchenko missed a twice true scoring chance, tumbling out together on one goalkeeper, failing to grasp the situation, though.
Football gods decided Phoenix deserved no forgiveness for such wastefulness and constructed another confirmation of the famous saying: 'if you don’t score…'. Nazar Martynenko, having been overlooked on the left flank, first managed to make up for one of the conceded balls, and a minute later he delivered an accurate long-range shot, which pierced the defense and the goalkeeper of Phoenix along an intricate trajectory. Two minutes before the end of regulation time, the players of the Kharkiv team switched to 5-a-side, being rather laid-back playing out the numerical, though, forgetting there can be no goals scored without any shots on goal made.
The second half ended with a score of 2: 2, which meant the players and spectators had to go through a series of penalty shoot-outs. The coaches of both teams joked: the previous meeting between those rivals ended in the same way. With only one difference - then, during the 2020/21 Ukrainian Cup, Kharkiv players made a comeback in the regulation time, and Tavriya won in the shoot-outs. Tavria players formed the backbone of Phoenix's opposition today.
Our coaching staff decided to entrust Eldar Bratchuk with the spot in the goal, despite Volodymyr Lazeba's mastery in saving six-meter shots. That decision was meant to boost Eldar's confidence, in view of the fact that he had not yet had any experience in saving penalty shoot-out kicks. The first three pairs of kicks left no chances for the goalkeepers; Phoenix players: Dolhulia, Soldatenko and Konkov won their spurs. Bratchuk was really close all three times to tackling the kicks of the opposition. Before the fourth kick, Serhii Hrytsenko and Yurii Vashchenko decided on a tactical sub, releasing Vova Lazeba, and he did not blunder, saving Bogdan Gurkinov's kick. Demyd Yevsyukov responded to this immediately with courtesy, kicking exactly at the goalie. After that, Eldar Bratchuk returned to Phoenix' net, the field players of both teams, who were making their fifth kicks in the series, did not err (our Bezruk scored). The series turned into the 'knockout' stage, where any mistake could become fatal. The first player to slur a kick was Bogdan Orlov, who hit the post. The second kick of yesterday's birthday boy Danylo Khodatskyi was flawless and brought Phoenix a win in the six-meter post-match series. 'It was a cool penalty shootout!’ Yurii Kondratyev, a delegate of AFU summed up.
Despite the vexatious loss of points, the outcome of the match did not fundamentally change anything in the standings and the final round for the Kharkiv players. Phoenix was ahead of Energia, which the team will counter later in the day, the Lviv team had a match in reserve, though. In any case, the win in the upcoming match would secure Phoenix a place in the League Cup final. Nevertheless, the remaining two matches of the one but final round ended with somewhat unexpected results: Energia and Valka, the leaders, stumbled, so that in the last round as many as five teams will compete for two prizes in the final, none of which has yet secured itself the pedestal!