football rambles

I have to admit the rise of Knyazha Shaslive completly passed me by. In my defence they play in the second league, which usually has midweek fixtures and despite their name have moved to Boryspil, which is 40km from Kyiv. In fact I probably wouldn't have visited their game last week if the premier league hadn't finished early due to the Euros. Well, why would I? Both Arsenal and Dynamo play at stadiums within walking distance of my flat afterall. It's also easy to be a bit cynical about Knyazha, they were formed in 2005 and formed in the village of Shaslive, which had been devoid of football since Obolon got their new ground, their second team moved to Boridyanka amd CSKA 2 became effectively CSKA. In their original press release there is no mention of the Knyazha Finance Group, who are part of a much bigger Austrian Company being involved, which is indeed suspicious. I initially assumed it was the vodka company of the same name, as this type of sponsorship is one way that

Obolon are sponsored by a brewery and Desna come from Chernihiv that is famous for its brewery, so guess what yesterday's pre, during and post-match entertainment included? Yep, beer and lots of it. There was no poncey kashtanchik, no go-go girls, just good honest ale. which was just aswell, as although the game was billed as a promotion challenging match it was rather disappointing. To be fair Desna brought a lot of fans who made a lot of noise and dominated for most of the game. However, it was Obolon who went ahead on the 38th minute and then who finished the game off with a penalty early on in the second half. The weather was sunny and it was probably Obolon's biggest crowd of the season, but for some unknown reason only a few big wigs were allowed in the main stand. We eventually got programmes, although I think we annoyed Tatarchuk in the process and we did get to meet ex-CSKA legend and now member of Desna, Mamadi Sangare. Ex-Dynamo and Ukrainian National Team manager Jo

Obolon's opponents today are Chernihiv Desna, unfortunately unlike most of the other teams I have written a focus on they have quite an unremarkable history. In fact one of the most important facts is that when they were formed in 1960 they had a young goalkeeper known as Viktor Bannikov between the posts. He later became one of the best goalkeepers in the USSR and was a visionary when he was a director of the Football Federation of Ukraine. His influence was so great that now the training pitches for the underage Internationals (and sometime venues) are named after him at the House of Football. There is also a tournament named after him. for more details see some previous posts: http://footballrambles.blogspot.com/2008/03/bannikov-training-complex-and-house-of.html http://footballrambles.blogspot.com/2008/03/entrance-to-bannikov-training-complex.html http://footballrambles.blogspot.com/2008/03/house-of-football-and-banniko.html Anyway, as I was saying Desna have not had the most g

Although I am biased to CSKA I wondered how the 2 experiences of the weekend matched up against each other, and will try to remain disinterested: The Football Unfortunately, there is no competition here, Knyazha are on an upward march and CSKA are on a downward spiral. We were happy to chat during the CSKA game, but the Knyazha match held our attention from beginning to end CSKA 0 Knyazha 1 The Stadium Although Chapaevka holds a certain charm it's still a training camp and has plastic pitches. The ground at Boryspil is fit for the Premier League and the seats are in a lot better condition than at most Vische Liha grounds. CSKA 0 Knyazha 2 The Fans The CSKA fans are a bunch of nutters and have some misguided views, but they are friendly, know their football and get behind their team. One Knyazha fan actually asked us which team was Knyazha, which would have been daft enough even if it didn't have it written on their shirts. CSKA 1 Knyazha 2 The Atmosphere The CSKA boys made some

If Saturday's trip to Chapaevka was all about disenfranchised football, tjhen the trip to Boryspil to see Knyazha take on Veres Rivne represented the other side of the coin. Knyazha Shaslive started out in the village of shaslive in 2005 and have been heavily bank-rolled by the Vienna Insurance Group. They are now at the top of division 2 A and will take part in the first division, probably at the expense of CSKA next season. The whole match experience was in sharp contrast to the CSKA game on Saturday. CSKA play in a modern area out of the town, Knyazha play in a stadium that is good enough for the Premier League, and indeed was used in the Premier League by Borysfen, before they went bankrupt last year in a town which is still remeniscent of the Soviet Period. CSKA have loyal fans and Borysfen rent fans from wherever possible. As for the football, Knyazha are a very good team for this level they played an entertaining brand of football with fluid passing and were unlucky to win o

The term in England is associated with FC United and Wimbledon, in Ukraine it can easily be applied to CSKA Kyiv. Whereas the term in England seems to convey a bunch of idiots who think they invented non-league football and who have a God given right to have promotion every year the Ukrainian model is somewhat different. Yeterday, me and Phil travelled to Chapaevka to see CSKA take on PFK Sevastapol. In 2001 they were flying high in the top half of the Vishe Liha, doing well in Europe and playing in their own stadium, yesterday they were playing at Dynamo's training ground and were relegated to the third level. It wasn't all doom and gloom though, unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries so I don't have any pictures, but the place is quite eye catching. There are 3 pitches with stands for people to watch the football from set in an ancient forest and the skyline yesterday was indeed dramatic. There's also a shop next to the ground and over the road a restaurant that

Sevastapol is a complicated city and so is its football history. For most of the period when the Soviet Union was in existence it was a closed city, due to the fact that it was the country's ship building and naval base. It became Ukrainian when The Crimea was given to Ukraine by Krushcev, but it has always seen itself as a Russian city. This is true of most of the Crimea, but even more so of Sevastapol, perhaps because it is also geographically the closest city in the region to Russia. It has led to political problems up to the present day, infact only last week Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow became persona non gratis in Ukraine for suggesting that the city was Russian. Well, their team plays in the Ukrainian League, so they must be Ukrainian in my opinion. However, the history of football in the city mirrors the complicated nature of the region itself. According to the official website the history of football in Sevastapol began in 1912 when the Russian Football Union was form

Well, Big Phil hits town this week, which should see a bumper weekend of football as CSKA take on PFK Sevastapol on Saturday in the first division and Knyazha take on Veres in the 2nd on Sunday. Hopefully, I'll get to both of the games, but he's a funny bugger sometimes, so let's just hope he doesn't leave me in the lurch!

1.Шахтар 74 2.Динамо 71 3.Металіст 63 4.Дніпро 59 5.Таврія 47 6.Арсенал 42 7.Чорноморець 38 8.Ворскла 36 9.Металург З 36 10.Карпати 33 11.Зоря 31 12.Металург Д 31 13.Кривбас 30 14.ФК Харків 27 15.Нафтовик-Укрнафта 26 16.Закарпаття 18

On Saturday me and Nadiya went to see Arsenal v FK Kharkiv on the last day of the season for the Vishe Liha. the game finished 0-0 and there was little excitement. I can't really complain as it was the first 0-0 I'd been to since Arsenal took on Kryvbas in October. FK Kharkiv created the most chances, which is understandable as they were in a position they could have been relegated from. However, they weren't and Naftovik Ukrnafta went down. This was a bit of a shame, as from what I have seen FK Kharkiv are the weaker of the two teams. Arsenal looked like they were on holiday already and only Jose looked like he could be bothered. The trend of footballers dreaming of a few weeks on the beach seemed to have been nationwide, and as Ewig pointed out we had seen some good games at Arsenal, as up until last week they were still in a position that they could get into the Intertoto Cup from. On the other hand Metalurh Zapporizhya had been on holiday for weeks, as they were firmly

Here's the trophy that Dynamo and Shakhtar are playing for today, but how long the vishe Liha will have its current format is up for questioning. It appears that the Arsenal owner has come up with the idea of making the vishe Liha more attractive. The details are a bit hazy at the moment, but the idea is that they break away in the same way that the English Premier League did. Some of his ideas are sensible, like lowering referee's salaries to stamp out corruption ( at the moment they are the best paid in the World), getting TV to pay for rights to show football instead of the current situation where the clubs pay to have their games shown and raising revenue and interest through commercial ventures. Some of the other ideas like clubs having to have a certain amount of cash to enter the league and an end to government subsidies are definitely motivated by self interest. He's one of the fat cats and the new format might even exclude big clubs like Dnipro, Metalist and Kryvb

So tomorrow is the last day of the season for the Vishe Liha and as I've already said most eyes are on the battle for the championship with shakhtar leading by 1 point ahead of Dynamo. Most other issues have been resolved, as Metalist and Dnipro will be playing in the UEFA Cup and Tavriya will be in the Intertoto. In 6th place are Arsenal, who I will be going to watch, the highest Arsenal can finish is 6th and the lowest they can finish is also 6th. Their opponents, FK Kharkiv will be hoping to avoid the drop. At the bottom of the table are Zakarpattiya, who have already been relegated and they will be joined in the 1st Division with either Naftovik Ukrnafta, who are on 25 points, and who will take on Vorskla at home, Fk Kharkiv on 26 points and Zorya who are on 28 and who play Zakarpattiya away. As the Vishe Liha finishes I'll be concentrating on the lower divisions. There are still 8 games to play in the 1st division and at the moment it is led by Illichevets Mariupol, who ar

Yamolenko repays semin's faith in youth by scoring in the last minute, although to be honest it was a bit flukey

Yarmash lobs Shovkovskiy in specatacular/ farcical fashion to make it Dynamo 1 Vorskla 1

Ninkovic does Dynamo's usual trick and scores early on against Vorskla

Hope's the last to die the buffoon with the microphone said before Dynamo's match with Vorskla on Sunday and for once his words seemed apt. Dynamo on the previous Wednesday had lost the cup final to shakhtar and with 2 games left were a point behind Shakhtar. Dynamo faced Vorskla at home and then this week have a tricky game away to third place Metalist, whereas Shakhtar faced the truly pathetic FK Kharkiv away followed by a home game against Metalurh Donetsk this week. To put it politely Metalurh are less than adverse to helping their neighbours out. Elsewhere I was waiting to see if Villa could pull of a miraculous entry into Europe - they didn't, but got an intertoto place and was sweating to see if this computer could be brought back to life. Dynamo managed to win this game, although they made heavy work of it and Shakhtar managed to beat FK Kharkiv without breaking a sweat, so it's all down to the wire on Sunday. This was one of the best games I've seen this s

Geroiv Dnipro is the name of the nearest station to the Obolon ground, which means Heroes of the Dnipro and is a tribute to those killed in action during World War 2. so it seems fitting that I visited this part of town on Victory Day for Obolon's game against Stal Dnipropetrovsk. We also had our own hero of the Dnipro in Sean who decided to go for a swim in the river at Hydropark with all his clothes on before the game. Unfortunately the effort to get him dry meant we were 30 minutes late for kick off and missed both of Obolon's goals. Obolon went on to win the game 2-1, with Stal scoring a consolation goal in the last minute of the game, which I didn't miss. Obolon now look like they can't avoid promotion, famous last words. The game was entrtaining enough with both sides coming close to scoring on several occassions, although Obolon always had the upper-hand. Fair play to stal though, as teams who are 2-0 down away from home often give up, but they didn't. In c

For some reason Arsenal seem to think that the more crap that they give away the more fans they'll attract. I have a more novel idea, why don't they just spend the money on assembling a squad who can at least compete for a UEFA cup spot instead of wasting money on cheap gimmicks? To be fair I received free tickets for this match - and I usually do from the official fan club. However, all the lads were away for this game, but I still managed to pick up some, when Nadiya spotted some girls handing out free tickets outside Teatralna Station. That said, I also bought 2 and don't mind paying for them. Arsenal's tickets cost 5 UAH (about 45p), which sounds ridiculously good value for money even if you compare it with Dynamo (25UAH), Metalist (35UAH) and Chernomorets (30UAH). This still doesn't stop people touting the free tickets outside the ground though. Added to this ol' concker head was handing out free flowers and there were free snacks and soft drinks for everyo

This game took place on the 29th April, and when I came home from it was when I realised my computer had been broken. The game took place between FK Obolon and Helios Kharkiv. Recently Obolon seemed to have been bottling it quite badly, as they often do in the second half of the season and they have been overtaken by Illichevets in first place. However, this game went some way in dispelling rumours that they were to start throwing games as they won this hard fought battle 2-0. The weather conditions were less than ideal and me and Andriy got the soaking of our lives. This didn't seem to bother the referee though, or he wasn't wearing a waterproof watch, or for some reason he wasn't aware that football matches go on for 45 minutes a half rather than an hour. Either way he didn't have the best of matches and sent off 2 players (1 from each team) for sliding tackles, which the slippery pitch made look a lot worse than they really were. Obolon created plenty of chances and

Well, I've been away for a while, because Sean broke my computer and I've only just got it back. There are plenty of things that have happened and I'll be catching up with all the matches I haven't posted here as soon as possible. In Ukrainian football Shakhtar won the Ukrainian Cup by beating Dynamo in a bad tempered cup final, which saw 3 Dynamo and 2 Shakhtar players being sent off. Zakarpattiya have been relegated and a Ukrainian last night lifted the UEFA Cup, when Tymoshchuk's Zenit beat Rangers 2-0. In English football Man United won the league, Blues were relegated, Villa came 6th and Olaf Mellberg gave everyone a shirt at his last game for Villa. The match reports might be a bit limited at the moment, as I really need to catch up with what has happened as the Vische Liha enters its last round this weekend.