Phoenix wins silver in the Summer Futsal Tournament. To get to the top tier Phoenix players would have had to jump over their own heads in today’s final match against Valky-2005 Sports School. And that jump would have concerned the team logistics rather than their style of play. 

It is for the sake of keeping fit in the first place that the ‘violets’ participated in the tournament over a traditionally spare month of summer. The final match reminded of a story about Sverdlov, the cruiser, of the Legend of a Naval Review by Mikhail Veller, where the crew had to urgently quit their scheduled repair and set off for a naval review in Leningrad, repairing the cruiser on the go. 

One could not say Phoenix, having assembled in its full staff thirty minutes before the match for the first time over a month, was not willing to compete for the first prize. The guys were motivated alright. These were the physical and functional characteristics that hampered Phoenix from playing their style of football against the team that was age-wise and physique-wise superior and in the perfect shape. Two fast conceded goals seriously impaired the strategy for the game Phoenix coaching staff had thought out. The attempts to restructure the game, generally, looked like combining differently staffed four-player squads, which did not bring down the volume of inaccuracies and mistakes in simple situations. 

Nervousness caused untypical of Phoenix number of violations, which led to three yellow cards and 1 ejection. A potential rescue could be the 5-a-side style, which the coaches had been polishing the Friday before the match, as though sensing today’s turn of events. Yet again, that did not come out quite effective because some of the key players were still off on vacation. 

Phoenix had a game advantage in the second half with its 28 goal attempts, compared to 12 of the competition, more than a half of that 28, though, were shots on target. Also, those shots posed no danger for the keeper of the competition. 

The Valkovians in their turn managed to score twice at the very end of the match. At first, Anatolii Naku did great in a shoot-out and then sent an accurate shot into Phoenix empty net. 

Phoenix wins second prize, which, in view of all the circumstances , is not that disappointing. A week from now the team will set off for its traditional training camp to get itself ready for a new season. The guys, who have had the best season in the history of the team, so far, will be the center of a busy schedule, composed of practice sessions and team-building workshops.