The victory in the match with one of the overdogs of the qualifying Group 'B' in the Kharkiv Futsal Championship - the first team of KhTZ - made it possible for Phoenix to talk quarter-finals with a fair amount of confidence. In order to secure a place in the top eight, it is enough for us to win the final match of the qualifying stage against Kommunar, which did not score a single point this season.
Phoenix, hosting the match on the pitch of NUPh Sports Centre, looked very decent, despite the somewhat unfulfilled ending of the second half. The team tried different combinations, created many chances and tried to play as favourite. True, the implementation leaves much to be desired - Artyom Shevchenko, Daniil Dudin, Ivan Konkov and Mikhail Soldatenko did not use great chances.
A week before leaving for the Ukrainian Cup, the coaches continued the rotation of the fours, testing for the best combinations and getting ready to play with Slobozhansky without Daniil Boldyzhev - the playmaker of the first four. With any combination, the game looked effective.
The 'violets' scored the first goal after an excellent combination, which Danila Khodatsky completed with an accurate shot. Soon they doubled the lead, bringing the score to a comfortable 2:0. Shortly before the end of the first half, Yaroslav Vovk took advantage of the confusion at Vladimir Laseba's net and narrowed the gap in the score to a minimum.
However, already at the beginning of the second half, Maxim Dolgulya, having coped with an inconvenient pass, was able to send the ball right into the goal.
The end of the second half was dictated by the KhTZ team, which managed to score the second goal, but did not have enough time for more.
Phoenix will bypass its current rival in the standings in case of victory in the final match, which will make it possible for us to finish third. At the same time, any other result may leave the team of Sergey Gritsenko and Yuri Vashchenko out of the playoffs.
A place in the quarter-finals has been secured by DYuSSh-11-1 and Persha Stolytsia from our group, who were in first and second place, respectively. For the remaining two berths, Phoenix and Football Academy continue to fight. The chances of the 'violets' look more preferable (one qualifying match with Kommunar, which ranks last). Football Academy needs to score a maximum of points in the two remaining matches against the first team of DYSSH-11 that has not lost a single point and is strong enough, although not motivated (due to its participation in the tournament out of competition).
In Group 'A', the second team of KhTZ and Enerhetyk from Solonitsevka already secured their places in the quarter finals. Almost surely the fourth team will be the first team of Valky DYSSh, which is currently the fifth, but it is unlikely that it will not score the required number of missing points in the two remaining matches against Sports School-7 and Victoria. One point in these games will be enough for Viktor Detyuk’s squad to leave Bogoduhiv DYSSh, which is now fourth, but has already played all its matches, out of the playoffs. However, DYSSh-7 also retains the theoretical chances of reaching the quarter-finals. True, for this, Victor Glebov's team needs not only to beat Valky DYSSh - a direct competitor - but also hope that the Valky team will not beat Victoria as well. Our second team, who accomplished a game feat and beat one of the group leaders 4:2, prevented Enerhetyk from Solonitsevka to finish the qualifying tournament on a high note. At the same time, our boys did this without any reinforcement from the first nominal roster, which the coaches saved for the decisive match against KhTZ-1.
However, the Solonitsevka team has already guaranteed itself a way out of second place, which means it can become our quarter-final opponent, if, of course, Phoenix beat Kommunar in the final round.
Very soon we will know the quarter-final pairs. In the meantime, let us thank our boys for the two great games they played this Friday.