As far as yesterday Phoenix played in a match for the bronze medals of the Ukrainian Cup U15 in Chernomorsk. Today the guys are in for another battle: for trophies of the annual Futsal Fair in Lutsk. In-between the two tournaments Phoenix spent around 24 hours on the road on a bus from Chernomorsk-Odessa and on a train from Kyiv to Lutsk.
The tournament in Lutsk was no less significant than the Ukrainian Cup. Judge for yourselves: most of ten participating teams in our age group are in AFU’s ranking of Children and Youth Clubs. Sports School 4 (Rivne) is in the 4th position of the ranking, Sports School Respect (Manevychy) is in the 7th position, Lubart of Lutsk is 21st and FC InBev of Zhytomyr is 24th. Sokil of Khmelnytskyi is not in the ranking just because the team did not participate in previous season’s official tournaments under AFU, which does not make the youth team performing in Extra League any less dangerous.
Phoenix brought 12 players to Lutsk. Apart from Valdyslav Khrypchuk, recovering in hospital, Danylo Dudin and Artem Shevchenko, who are not eligible because of the Futsal Fair player age restrictions.
Another unpleasant thing for the team, tired after the long trip, was the way the playing fields were allocated. There are four of them in Arena City, out of which only two are of customary sizes for Phoenix. Two other ones are smaller in size and narrower. That meant Phoenix had to stick to a different scheme – playing defense first – in the first two kick-off matches of the group stage: against Lubart , the host team, and FC InBev of Zhytomyr, at the same time trying to adjust to Teraflex coating again.
The boys coped with the task fairly well. They could have done excellently if it hadn’t been for one minute in their match against Lubart, when the violets managed to concede two goals, having turned a comfortable 4:1 into 4:3 gingering up their fans who had managed to drop guard by then. It was like an echo of yesterday’s match with Ilichovets, this time, though, the situation was resolved 25 seconds before the final whistle.
In the match against FC InBev Phoenix had enough composure to win 4:0, showing quite decent play.
Tomorrow two final matches of the group stage await the team – against Sports School 4 (Rivne) and against Power (Rozhyshche). The matches are scheduled for 11:00 and 12:00 pm, respectively. Life coverage is not envisaged by the organizers, so, we are going to stream via our club Instagram channel, just like with today’s match with the Zhytomyr team.
Note, only two best teams in each of the groups will play in Futsal Fair High League, which Phoenix was the winner of in the previous season.