Many people were looking forward to this game, as this was a head-to head struggle between the teams that were in the leading group. Both competitors were on victorious surge, having lost scoring points only once in this tournament. The game started with a delay of 20 minutes. Our boys had to wait for their opponents who literally arrived ‘fresh off the boat’, coming back from their afternoon game. At this time you could watch an amusing sight: when Phoenix players were busy with their traditional warming-up, Cobra-CPTO-3 was represented only by three football players. However, their teammates arrived soon and Serhii Molchanov, the referee, gave a starting whistle.
Phoenix players managed a rushing start. Just like in the previous game against Zhilstroy-1-KDYSSh-8, the team of Serhii Hrytsenko and Yurii Vashchenko overtook the initiative from the first seconds of the game. The bet of coaching staff for a quick goal worked well, and Mykhailo Soldatenko was the first to celebrate success, while he was assisted greatly by Ivan Konkov. Hardly had the players of Cobra-CPTO-3 caught their breath when the second goal was scored into the net of Mykyta Vinnikov. In this game episode Maksym Dolhulia sent the ball into the target after shifting to the center and with the help of a small deflection.
The boys decided to move on and continued steadily to look for approaches to the opponents’ net. At the same time Phoenix goalkeeper Volodymyr Lazeba stayed idle during the first half without letting a single goal in. Daniil Vavenko was close to success, but our goalkeeper was impeccable. But for his former teammate, and now Phoenix player Demyd Yevsiukov, this game was a special one. He was doing his best, having played an important part in the resulting success of his team. It was Demyd who passed on a precise assist in the episode when Denys Mikhno scored the third goal for his team. In one minute Ivan Konkov placed the second successful assist into the record of his achievements, and Maksym Dolhulia scored a ‘double’. Soon a symbolic switchover took place: from the former captain – to the current one. Maksym Dolhulia took Danylo Boldyzhev to the shooting position, and he shot into the upper corner of Cobra-CPTO-3 net. Successful start of the game made it possible for Phoenix coaches to perform rotation of team players, giving a chance to all players on the team roster for this match to show themselves.
It needs to be remarked that Cobra players list looked amazing – at the beginning of the game the coach desk was occupied by ... DYSSh-7 coach Viktor Hlebov, and the team in the field was actually a combined team made up from his team and Cobra-CPTO-3. It was the activity from one of the leaders of the seventh sports school Anton Sklyar that led to Cobra’s ‘awakening’, although it did not lead to scored goals in the first half. Possessing a solid predominance in score, our boys slowed down a little bit at the beginning of the second half of the game.
Having felt confident, the ‘snake’ side started to threaten more frequently the net of Eldar Bratchuk who occupied Phoenix last frontier in the second 20-minutes. Initially he performed several saves, in one of the episodes he was assisted by the post, and still Anton Sklyar managed to ‘break the shutout’. To be fair, I need to say that ‘Cobra-CPTO-3’ played well enough to score a goal – even if Serhii Krasilya and Mykolai Kravchenko were absent at coaches desk during the previous game.
At the end of the match Phoenix decided to experiment by using the 5-a-side tactics, using Danylo Boldyzhev as the fifth player. Speaking of which, he could definitely use his goalkeeper skills as Cobra didn’t want to surrender at discretion of the winner. Nevertheless, we had the last word. Maksym Dolhulia added an assist to the two goals he had scored, and Mykhailo Soldatenko had a shot after his assist at the far post.
Thus Phoenix strengthened its lead in the division and will go with positive emotions to Futsal Fair that will start in Lutsk this Saturday.
Serhii Hrytsenko (Phoenix coach):
- During the first five minutes we scored the goals very quickly. Just as I asked at a training session – we needed to let the boys born in 2007 step into the pitch. The team is leaving for Lutsk tomorrow, therefore, we wanted to give some rest to certain players and let play those who had less game practice.
- What are the components of Phoenix success in today‘s game?
- Everything was going smoothly first five minutes, but the second four players fell out of the game completely. It is related to the fact that they don’t have enough game practice.
- What will be the priority for the upcoming tournament in Lutsk: arranging game relations or the result?
- The most important thing is to show a good game. To let the children learn how to play football right.