A Lesson in Football



I spent Saturday afternoon watching FK Kharkiv take on Arsenal in Sumy on TV. It was a pedestrian 1-1 draw and the unloved FK Kharkiv have proved that they are unwanted in their own town, as they are having to play in the impressive Sumy stadium after Spartak Sumy went bankrupt when Luk Oil pulled out of their sponsorship. The Arsenal lads had gone to the game, and when I found out I was texting them saying I wish I had gone with them. On second thoughts I am glad I didn't.

Instead in the evening I went to the game between the two bigger Kyiv and Kharkiv teams, Dynamo and Metalist. This was one of the best games I have seen in a long while. Both teams were up for it and were roared on by passionate fans. Sure, there were the usual Dynamo idiots who spent most of the game taking photos of each other in their new scarves and one woman who had wandered in with her boyfriend 40 minutes late asked if Dynamo were wearing yellow, who still celebrated the Blue and Whites goal 2 minutes later like she'd just won the Champions League, but in general the atmosphere was electric.

The game had everything, charged up fans, rattled woodwork, turned down penalty decisions, a 20 man brawl and 3 wonderful goals. What really topped it off was that in the last 10 minutes when Dynamo were throwing everything forward the Metalist defence managed to hold out for a win.

As I suspected a couple of week's ago the Dynamo forwards would be caught out against a better defence. Shatkikh looked out of his depth, Milevskiy couldn't keep up and Bangoura when he came on still looked out of sorts.

The opening goal came on 38 minutes when Serhiy Valyaev managed to jink around the Dynamo defence and slot the ball in for a 1-0 lead to Metalist. The lead was short-lived though, as on the stroke of half time Milos Ninkovic, put one of his trademark blasters, that Aliev tries to copy so much into the back of the net.

Both teams played a hard pressing brand of football, but Metalist's considerably pacier defence were able to do more on the counter attack, which was proved on 5o minutes when Fantastic Jackson, as he's known in the First Capital, scored another spectacular goal to put Metalist in the lead.

The rest of the game was played out at break neck speed with Dynamo hitting the post and not getting the equaliser due to some stout defending, inepept shooting and stern refereeing. Despite the constant pressure Metalist looked like they could extend their lead on the counter attack, especially when the ball was played out to Jackson. However, the game finished 2-1 and Metalist went back to Kharkiv with 3 points.

Maybe, just maybe the winds are changing in Ukrainian football. Shakhtar have had a couple of bad results and in this game Metalist gave Dynamo a lesson in how to play the 'Dynamo style'. For a few years Dnipro have been the team that everybody expected to break the dominance of the top 2, but after a 3rd place finish last season Metalist could perhaps at least go one better. At the moment Kharkiv is the biggest city in Europe never to have had a team taking part in the ChampionsLeague/ European Cup. On this performance I wouldn't bet against them not taking part in the Continent's elite competition next year.
The top photo shows a Dynamo attack
Bottom: Metalist fire just wide of the post

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

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

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