Games against the teams from elder age group were even more beneficial to Phoenix than ever – the Championship of Ukraine will be played against boys born in 2005. But today Svet messed all things up for Serhii Hrytsenko and Yurii Vashchenko as they brought in their team of players born in… 2003 for today’s match. That is why there was not so much football in the game initially as there was physical struggle and fouls. Right after the second change the coaching staff of the violets had to rearrange the fours in the field right in the middle of the action by bringing in all players who could compete with the opponents in height and weight, as in many cases the difference in the age of opponents reached 4-5 years. It was hard for Danylo Khodatskyi, who had got rid of his gypsum only recently and who played almost the entire game ‘from scratch’.
Svet put emphasis on long-range shots that were powerful and, particularly in the first half, quite precise. Volodymyr Lazeba who stood in the net played above all praise. He bolstered the confidence of his partners with his saves that were sometimes unbelievable.
The team play was invigorated, as it has often happened in recent matches, by the second four-players set. Even after the first change the game tempo increased significantly, we pushed the game to the opponents’ net and gained territorial advantage. And, as a consequence – attacks that led to dangerous moments became more frequent. In many situations the team was extremely misfortunate – Mykhailo Soldatenko and Maksym Dolhulia missed good opportunities to score, and at least twice there were disputable situations when it was not clear if the ball crossed the line of the net or not as the line was simply not there in the field. On three occasions Svet was saved by the post.
Still the team was rewarded for the persistence they showed when an excellent long ball across the field made by Daniil Dudin to Artem Shevchenko was cut into his own net by Ivan Litvin.
In the second half Phoenix built up pressure onto the opposition net by using free zones in the center of the field. Only Danylo Khodatskyi passed through the center to the net twice without any resistance. If his first shot was largely ill-taken, the second one made the fans breath out in relief – the one-ball advantage looked too unhandy in an open game like this one.
The last minute of the game turned everything around. At first Svet players narrowed the difference in score to one ball after they scored directly from a free kick. After the boys missed an excellent three-on-one opportunity in the attack that followed, their opponents evened the score.
Phoenix loses the first points in Kharkiv Cup, yet, preserving its first position in the standings. Volodymyr Lazeba as one of the best players of the game received a card of the recent Champions League game between Shakhtar and Manchester City as a gift from Yurii Vasiliev who came to support us.