Phoenix gets through to the final part of the Ukrainian Futsal Championship! The team will play among top eight teams for the second year in a row, but there is, as they say, a nuance: last year the boys achieved this result, playing in their age category, whereas today they are among the teams where the players are one or two years their seniors.
This is how a mysterious system of the Championship of Ukraine works - age groups U12, U14, and so on do not exist. So, it turns out that, say, teams play one year in their age group, and the next year - in the older one. This time, Olympic-UFK from the ‘juniors’, having successfully overcome the qualification phase, kept Phoenix company.
The six points that the team gained after the matches of the last game day made it possible for Phoenix to finish third, falling short of Olympic-UFK, the group winner, by as little as two points. The two points... at the thought of points memories of yesterday’s disastrous match with DYSSh-5 come back ...
Today, Phoenix could well miss some points. Quite predictably, the match against DYSSh-7 - the outsider of the selection - became the hardest one. Seeming to control the territorial play the 'violets' were smashed against the sharp and quick counterattacks of Viktor Hlebov and Mykolai Ivanko's team. Already in the first quarter of the match, after two accurate shots by Anton Sklyar and Volodymyr Lazarev, we were on fire: 0:2! Meanwhile, Mykyta Vinnikov's goal seemed to be enchanted, and the keeper of the 'reds' played off the charts.
Phoenix came out swinging only in the second half, and closer to the end of the match. And what an ending it was! Daniil Dudin reduced the backlog, and 8 minutes later Misha Soldatenko made the score draw, marking the start of team's hot 6-minute, when 5 more goals ended up in the net of DYSSh-7 after the strikes by Nikita Bodnar, Sasha Bezruk, Demid Evsyukov, Daniil Boldyzhev and Danila Khodatsky.
Phoenix put an end to this qualifying phase, which the team spent, sure enough, unevenly. Vivid matches alternated with frankly disastrous games, like, of course, the ones with Persha Stolytsia (1:5) and DYSSh-5 (3:10). Neither one managed to progress from the group.
However, we will bear in mind other matches - today's victory over Olympik-UFK (5:1) - the winner of the qualifying group - and a fantastic match against Valki DYSSh -2 (2:0). Vivid, fast-paced and shrewdly-played was the successful match against Persha Stolytsia (5:3).
We beat the fourth finalist - Zolochev DYSSh - twice, having managed to gain the victory before the Zolochevians put older players of Sportinternat on their roster, who, in fact, took the 'greens' to the top eight.
The date and time of the final tournament have not been set yet. While waiting for futher details, we congratulate the boys and coaches on this significant success and temporarily switch to the matches of the Kharkiv Championship.