The main group stage match has been played. Phoenix and Sports School Volna, the obvious leaders of Kharkiv Summer Futsal Championship, both unbeaten so far, competed with each other for the first place in the group today. It is clear, though, that the teams will face each other again. This will most likely happen in the final match of the tournament, unless, of course, the draw brings them to the playoffs earlier, which, frankly, would be a pure injustice.
The twenty-sixth meeting of the teams, whose confrontations over the past five years have been among the brightest events in the history of Kharkiv youth futsal tournaments, was expected not so much in terms of determining the winner of the group stage, but in terms of play in the first place. For an unusually long time since their last October meeting, the rivals followed the paths that did not cross. Sports School Volna, excellently staffed and with a great potential in terms of play, only once this season performed at the national level. In the Ukrainian Championship U14, the team of Oleksandr Kuzmenko and Konstantin Tatarenko, in an eventful way, left their qualifying group, eventually managing to win bronze medals of the tournament. All other competitions in which Volna took part were traditional local ones.
Phoenix has almost completely reoriented itself towards national AFU tournaments, the main ones being the Championship of Ukraine and Ukraine's Cup. To be able to compete on equal terms with the best clubs in Ukraine, the violets played the Winter Kharkiv Championship among the teams staffed with players born in 2005, joining their first adult tournament this spring - the JIA Futsal Cup, keeping in mind the upcoming season in age category U17.
Fate brought the two teams together again in the Kharkiv Summer Championship, where the 2006/07 League turned out to be the eldest. In the tournament where both teams have not faced much resistance, this match turns out to be a very good sparring, also because of its nonessentiality from the tournament point of view.
Phoenix' coaching staff devoted the whole of Wednesday training to the upcoming meeting with the principal rival, with the main focus on counter play against five outfield players. The coaches must have had the second sight: Volna scored three times using exactly that component of the game and creating the biggest pain for our four-player squads.
True, the score at that point of the match was as big as 5:0 - and that is by the middle of the second half. The territorial advantage was Phoenix', none of the teams truly carrying the play. The game was played toe-to-toe, our boys, having toughened up in games with older teams, looked physically stronger in head-to-heads, though, and, perhaps, showed a little more variety in tactics, shifting from 3-1 to 2-2 formations.
Notably, though, Phoenix was head and shoulders above the opposition in the implementation of their own scoring chances. Even though Volna had the first chance to open the score. The teammates took Bohdan Ivanchenko to a shooting position towards the center of the goal, but he hesitated with a kick and the moment was lost. Roman Hospodenko had an opportunity to open the score in a little while, kicking the ball past Volodymyr Lazeba. The kick was quite weak, though, and Danylo Khodatskyi saved his goalkeeper easily. A little later, Konstantin Zaika performed an identical passthrough countering Lazeba, going wide, though.
Our guys did score first, taking advantage of the opponent's mistake. Konkov and Zamula 'robbed' Serhii Velkhivsky in his half of the field, playing one-two, with the final pass being interrupted by Oleksandr Voitov, deflecting off him just under Konkov's kick - 1:0.
Kostyantyn Zaika could have leveled the score five minutes later, failing his lob shot and sending it over both our goalkeeper and the goal instead.
At the end of the half the violets scored twice more. First, Demyd Yevsyukov removed Kostyantin Zaika on the swing and performed a long range shot with his weak foot. Oleh Ahafonov turned the ball away quite unsuccessfully - sending it to Mykyta Bodnar, guarding the far post, who doubled the advantage of our team. A minute later, Serhii Velkhivsky's mistake in defense led to the loss of the ball. Demyd Yevsyukov switched the ball to Oleksandr Bezruk, who lobbed Oleh Ahafonov, preparing to save the ball.
Two minutes into the second half, Danylo Boldyzhev's solo run along the right flank ended with his robust kick into the far corner. 8 minutes later Maksym Dolhulia scored from the same place and into the same corner. That was how the score turned to 5:0.
Volna switched to a game with five outfield players, which brought success in a minute. Oleksandr Voitov scored twice, and Roman Hospodenko scored one more time. In-between those goals, we could have scored three more times, be Mykhailo Soldatenko and Volodymyr Lazeba more accurate shooting long range into the empty goal.
And yet the violets were the ones to have the final say in the game. Danylo Boldyzhev was brought one-on-one with Oleh Ahafonov, who managed to reach the ball first, failing to catch it, though, so that it rolled into an empty goal.
6:3 is the final score of the 'derby', which almost certainly will not be the last one in the tournament for the teams. To win the group, Phoenix needs to gain three points in one of the two remaining games with Sports School No13 and the second team of Metalist-1925. Sports School Volna is is bound to be second. The chances of the rest of the teams to get through to the quarterfinals look more or less equal. Even the team of Sports School No13, last in the standings and without a single point, has not lost its chance yet.
Both Phoenix and Sports School Volna are keeping the final game in mind, which, if it takes place, will be the seventh meeting of the rivals.