Kill Your Television


Things are hotting up in the lower divisions with just 4 games left in the first and second division. CSKA take on Illichevets today, but I'll be at work. The next game I'll be able to go to is Obolon v Dnipro Cherkasy on Sunday.


There was no live football this weekend, so I was out in the sticks, which isn't my favourite place to be, to be honest. We came back to Kyiv on sunday morning and I was tempted by the Beach Football in Hydro Park, but the inclement weather put me off. One of the strange things is that Ukraine are quite adept at beach football. I say strange, as obviously Ukraine isn't exactly known for its sun, sea and samba. The Crimea might be famous in the former USSR, but even there all the beaches are pebbles.


In the evening I watched Ukraine v Sweden on TV. Mikhailechenko put out a young team and there was no Shevchenko, Tymoschuk or Voronin, but quite a few of the youngsters got a go. I was particularly glad to see Arsenal favourite Evgen Seleznev ( I know I can't settle on a correct spelling for him in English) get a start. Unfortunately after heading the scoring charts at Arsenal all season it looks like he's been called back to shakhtar, where he'll probably be warming the bench with a hell of a lot of Ukrainian talent. Anyway, the winner was scored by Nazarenko, a spectacular goal infact 7 minutes before the end.


Talking of football on TV, and in general I don't like to because I don't like armchair fandom. There has been a debate amongst the top teams lately about how to make televised football more appealing to fans, well Nash Futbol on the First Channel doesn't seem to have a clue. You might think out of season and no rights to the national team they might pull the plug on it for a week at least. Some of it was interesting, there was more information on Knyazha's work for charidee, and some beach football, but the main part was taken up by a report on all the Ukrainian professional players who had been killed in traffic accidents, depressing watching indeed. There was also a bit on the Euros, which kick off on Saturday.


My favourites for the competition are Germany, they seem to have the strongest team and almost have home advantage. I also think Spain will do better than usual, as they have finally got rid of the eternal troublemaker Raul and have players who can mix it up a bit. At every major tournament though I start off by watching every game and then OD by the time the important games come around. I think I'll try pacing myself this time.
The photo shows Evgen Seleznev taking on Olaf Mellberg in the tie between Ukraine and Sweden. Two players I have a lot of time for

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

shirt history AS Roma

Image
Roma were the club that I followed in Italy and although they are most famous for wearing red and yellow, hence the nickname giallo rosso the club didn't always wear those colours. AS Roma were formed in 1927 by a merger between SS Alba-Audace and Fortitudo-Pro Roma SGS with Italo Foschi being the driving force behind the merger. AS Roma could also trace their lineage back to FBC Roma who were formed in 1901 and who wore red and yellow, but the first shirts they wore took the red, white and blue of Fortitudo-Pro Roma. Roma soon established themselves at the top table of Italian football and in 1931 finished runners up to Juventus and by now had settled on red and yellow as their colours. However, you'll have to take my word for it because the picture below shows Attilio Ferraris in black and white. In 1942 Roma went one better and won their first Scudetto with Amadeo Amadei scoring 18 goals to help them secure the title. Pictured below he is wearing the change shirt with a repl
Read more

Boca Juniors shirt history

Image
The first game that I will be at on Sunday sees Boca Juniors take on Paris Saint Germain. I have always wanted to go and see Boca Juniors and I can't see me getting over to Argentina any time in the near future, so I am going to have to make do with seeing them in North London. On my travels I have met plenty of Boca fans, but funnily enough they have all been Russian or Ukrainian. I am a bit disappointed that Martin Palermo has now retired, but I am still looking forward to it. Obviously to do justice to the club history of Boca Juniors I'd probably have to write a book, so here's a quick history of their kit and colours instead. When Boca were formed in 1905 they originally played in pink, but obviously came round to thinking that this was a bad idea and changed to a light blue colour later in the year. They didn't stick with this shirt for very long either and for the 3rd time in a year decided to change the shirt colour, this time to black and white stripes. The fol
Read more

Sud Tribune, Dortmund

Image
The Sud Tribune at Westfalen is famed for the noise and support that it gives the BVB team. They started up early and carried on until well after the match had finished despite the poor result. At the end the team looked suitably disappointed when they thanked the fans. Nobody apart from the Hannover fans probably expected 96 to win. Hopefully better times for the Sud Tribune are just around the corner.
Read more