The restoration of the championship of Ukraine immediately presented a surprise and intensified the fight for gold. Last week, there were enough informational battles surrounding the football plan.
After a break in the national team matches, the championship of Ukraine resumed. The most high-profile result last weekend was recorded in Odessa, where the local "Chornomorets" did not lose to the UPL leader "Shakhtar" (2:2). Roman Hryhorchuk's team was the first to take points from Ihor Jovyevich's wards this year.
"The teams of Jovycevych and Grigorchuk spent a spectacular first half with four goals scored, and after the break, the Donetsk people did not come up with anything in attack. Although in the end, Jovičević constantly tried to strengthen the game of his team in attack with fresh players, but they did not give Shakhtar the necessary quality, and in the end it all ended with the fact that the visitors simply could not create scoring opportunities in the other team's penalty area, even with primitive vertical football., - writes the site Football.ua (04.02.23).
"Great match in Odessa. Probably the best of the entire tour. For the first time this spring, Shakhtar lost points in the UPL, and Hryhorchuk's team continues to maintain a successful streak. This time, Chornomorets looked good against one of the best teams in the country, thus proving that things are improving. "Shakhtar" allowed "Dnipro-1" to reduce the gap a little, but still has plus one from the main pursuer", - notes journalist Georgy Groshev (Ua-football.com, 02.04.23).
"The game turned out to be dynamic and spectacular, Odessans were not at all afraid of their famous opponents and did not look weaker", - the portal pays tribute to "Chornomorets". Sport.ua (04.02.23).
The miners' misfire allowed Dnipro-1 to come close to the UPL leader. Oleksandr Kucher's team, in turn, took three points in the match with "Metalist 1925" (3:0), although the score does not really reflect the course of the game. The people of Dnipro could not score against their opponents until the 71st minute, after which Artem Dovbyk completed a hat trick in ten minutes.
"Dnipro-1 won a difficult but convincing victory." A hat trick allowed Dovbyk to strengthen his leadership in the pursuit of goalscorers. Now the forward has scored 15 goals. This is four more than Vitaly Buyalskyi, who continues to serve a suspension.
And in an hour, Dnipro residents received another great news. "Shakhtar" lost points in the confrontation with "Chernomorets", which made it possible to reduce the gap from the leader to just one point", - writes columnist Serhiy Sytnyk (Footboom.com, 02.04.23).
Luhansk "Zorya", which on Sunday won another victory over "Rukh" (3:0), does not let go of the leaders. This success also allowed Patrick van Leeuwen's team to maintain a four-point advantage over Dynamo Kyiv, which in turn defeated the club of the same name in Lviv.
Traditionally, a lot of media attention was drawn to the Kyiv match, especially in connection with the peculiar anniversary of Mircea Lucescu, who played the hundredth match at the head of Dynamo in all tournaments. In the end, the players pleased the Romanian coach with a good result, although in the first half they experienced serious difficulties in the fight against the opponent.
"But after the resumption of the meeting, it was not necessary to say anything about the home team's attacks, because they actually did not exist. Dynamo completely seized the initiative, led their own attacks and eventually created a set-up for Popov with a corner kick from the right wing, but the defender headed wide of the near post. The next standard position was much more successful in Kyiv — a free kick in the 52nd minute that Shepelev rolled to Vanat, who powerfully shot into the bottom right corner.
After that moment, the hosts seem to have lost hope in their own strength. Substitutions from Bezsmertnyi did not make his team's game more lively, but instead the pressure from Kyiv did not go anywhere. "Dynamo" eventually scored a second goal as a result of a blatant mistake on the left wing of a free kick by Grisio, who gave the ball to Garmash, who gave the opportunity to Ramirez to score a goal. That was the end of it, although the game was more competitive even before the break.", says the site Football.ua (04.02.23).
"Football 24" columnist Taras Kotiv notes the coaching decisions of Lucescu, who correctly reacted to the defeat by "Zorya". In particular, Dubinchak, who came out from the left in defense, was one of the most active on the field; young Tsarenko looked good in the "Buyalskyi position", and Benito constantly posed a threat to opponents on the right flank of the attack.
The author also draws attention to Lucescu's successful decisions during the course of the game.
"This time, Lucescu's substitutions worked very well. One (Garmash) assisted, the other (Ramirez) scored. The same gang could have organized the rout", - emphasizes Kotiv (Football24.ua, 02.04.23).
Journalist "UA-Football" Georgy Groshev also focuses attention on the Kyiv coach, noting his efforts in selecting the team against the background of serious staffing problems. In his opinion, in the current situation, the Kyivans have achieved their main goal: now it is much more important for the team to put a set of points on the stream than to enjoy the beauty of the game.
"It is important that the president of the club is sure that even with the current place in the table, the capital team, thanks to the experience of the Romanian coach, can fix everything. Although the club went to the international break in a depressed mood after the second defeat of the season against Luhansk "Zora", - the author notes (Ua-football.com, 02.04.23).
"FootballHub" in turn singles out "Dynamo" strikers, each of whom scored a goal. "The forwards broke through! Vanat and Ramirez give victory to "Dynamo" in Lviv", - writes the portal (Footballhub.ua, 02.04.23).
Lucescu himself first of all noted the young players of Dynamo, who are increasingly actively involved in the game of the first team and should become its basis in the future.
"It's important that today we brought in a number of young performers who are already at first-team level. I am also glad that Benito adds more and more with each match. Another young player of ours made his debut - Yatsyk. He is playing well, so this is an important debut for us and for him.
"Lviv" did not create any particular problems for us, we had 7-8 moments to score more. But in order to play at the level that Dynamo Kyiv should have, we need time. We had a good team that won the championship, but many good performers left and now we need time to rebuild the team with a focus on young players.", Lucescu stated (Dynamo.kiev.ua, 02.04.23).
Well, the training of young players has always been an important task not only for Dynamo, but also for other leading clubs of Ukraine, and in these difficult times, and also considering the latest results of our national teams, this mission becomes really crucial for all Ukrainians football
While Shakhtar's first team was fighting to keep the first step in the UPL, the club's administration continued to fight on another important front. In particular, the Donetsk club filed a complaint with the European Union Commission against FIFA regarding the current suspension of labor contracts with legionnaires and foreign coaches.
"The complaint relates to the club's intention to challenge the decision of the FIFA Council to extend the temporary amendments to the FIFA Rules on the status and transfer of players under Circulars 1800 and 1804. Steps have been taken to submit this complaint to the European Commission, given the importance and dependence of Shakhtar FC » from carrying out operations on the transfer market with players within the borders of the European Union, as well as the obvious impact of FIFA's decision on the club's market activity in the EU. Therefore, it is perfectly legal and fair to file this complaint with the EU Commission, as FIFA's actions breach EU competition law.", - says the official statement of "Shakhtar" (Shakhtar.com, 30.03.23).
As it has already been noted several times, the Donetsk club considers the decision of FIFA to automatically suspend contracts with legionnaires and foreign coaches of Ukrainian clubs after the full-scale invasion of Russia into our country illegal and discriminatory.
As a result, many legionnaires left Shakhtar and other Ukrainian clubs as free agents. Shakhtar considered the measures applied by FIFA to be excessive and to have resulted in a loss of income from player transfers and a depletion of the club's main income by an amount of approximately 40 million euros.
The Donetsk club already appealed the decision at the Lausanne Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but lost the case.
"As a club we have faced the bias and unfairness inherent in the international football legal system - a process that lacks fairness and transparency and is clearly not fit for purpose. FIFA has created a system through which it can influence the outcome of the Court of Arbitration for Sport's decisions, so we call on international football to unite and reform the legal procedures and governance standards of our sport.", - emphasizes "Shakhtar" (Shakhtar.com, 30.03.23).
Shakhtar noted that the Court of Arbitration for Sport must be protected from the influence of all external parties, including FIFA, and be able to rule on cases independently, with full impartiality and fairness. And he also expressed hope that the European Commission will understand and appreciate the extreme financial pressure the club is under due to the actions of FIFA against the backdrop of the devastation of our country by an illegal war.
While Shakhtar, in his opinion, suffers from the arbitrariness of international bodies of football justice, Kyiv Dynamo continues to be oppressed by similar structures of the Ukrainian Football Association.
Last week, in particular, the UAF Control and Disciplinary Committee made another high-profile decision regarding a player from the Kyiv club.
"For expulsion after the match of the 17th round of the UPL championship SC "Dnipro-1" (Dnipro) - FC "Dynamo" (Kyiv), which took place on March 12, to suspend the football player of FC "Dynamo" (Kyiv) Vitaly Buyalskyi from participation in the competition for three matches for obscene and offensive language", - reports the UAF website (Uaf.ua, 30.03.23).
We will remind that most experts considered Buyalskyi's removal as a result of the incompetence or even bias of the main referee Dmytro Kryvushkin and VAR referee Yevhen Aranovskyi, which provoked an excessively emotional reaction of the Dynamo leader after the final whistle.
"What kind of bias towards the team does one need to act the way Kryvushkin did? The player of "Dnipra-1", who does not fight for the ball and does not take part in single combat, simply runs up to the opponent and "drives" his leg over Buyalskyi's ankle with his entire body weight. And all this is in front of the eyes of Kryvushkin, who was standing ten meters from the episode and saw everything perfectly.
At first, the judge did not make any decision - a confrontation began. Kryvushkin may have been waiting for some kind of hint, and in the end took the punishment in the form of a yellow card. It's a pure red though. You need to read the rules.
What should have been thought of to give a yellow card instead of a red card? This is either complete ignorance of the rules or a biased approach. Kryvushkin had a loyal attitude towards one team, and a strict one towards another. Which also resulted in a red card for Vitaly Buyalsky after the final whistle", — this is how ex-FIFA referee Myroslav Stupar analyzed the scandalous situation in hot pursuit (Ua-football.com, 12.03.23).
And although formally the UAF KDC made its decision in accordance with the regulatory norms, the whole situation only emphasizes the systemic bias of both the referees (the referees themselves, VAR and the relevant committee) and related bodies of football justice (including the committee of ethics and fair play) that apply sanctions not to the real perpetrators, but actually to the victims of judicial errors.
At the same time, for the mutual obscene and insulting statements of Shakhtar coach Jovichevich and Kryvbas vice-president Artem Gagarin, the UAF KDC fined both clubs 10,000 hryvnias, which reminded me of Benito Mussolini's well-known principle: everything is for friends, the law is for enemies...
Meanwhile, the "Buyalsky case" caused another extremely scandalous situation. The fact is that the negligence of VAR referee Aranovskyi, who was simply obliged to get Kryvushkin to review the decision regarding Blanco's foul, was reacted to by the executive committee of the Kyiv Football Association, whose panel of arbitrators includes Aranovskyi.
"To recognize the inaction of the head of the team of VAR referees, FIFA referee E. Aranovsky as deliberate or biased, which does not correspond to his professional qualifications. To recommend to the College of football referees of the GS AFC to suspend the appointment of E. Aranovskyi to serve in city competitions and to consider the issue of his further stay as a member of the College", - the AFC Executive Committee decided (Ukrfootball.ua, 17.03.23).
It is known that the Football Association of Kyiv, headed by Igor Kochetov, has long been the only regional federation that does not keep pace with the "party", that is, the UAF - and for its independent position was punished by exclusion from the collective members of the national association (which, however , in the opinion of the AFC, was illegitimate and is being challenged accordingly).
Another manifestation of a "different opinion" of the capital branch in the House of Football, of course, was not tolerated.
"After learning about AFC's decision, Luciano Lucci, the head of the refereeing corps of Ukraine, informed the referees who are part of AFC's panel of referees (which are several dozen judges) that they will no longer be involved in refereeing matches held under the auspices of UAF (i.e. in any league) due to the fact that "AFK is not a legitimate member of UAF".
These referees were advised to change the AFC to any other regional association if they wished to continue their cooperation with the UAF. A number of judges are currently in the process of making this change.", - reports the website "Champion" (Champion.com.ua, 31.03.23).
However, then a logical question arises for Lucha: if "AFK is not a legitimate member of the UAF", then why did he actively involve Kyiv referees in working on matches of the national championship? And if the status of the AFC is really irrelevant, isn't his decision the usual repression and a frank manifestation of double standards?
Meanwhile, constant scandals related to refereeing force the mass media to analyze the state of refereeing in Ukrainian football more deeply.
"In 2023, the most discussed topic within Ukrainian football […] The level of refereeing in matches affects everyone the most - it has dropped very much in recent months. This is all superimposed on the general non-publicity and reluctance of the judiciary to discuss mistakes and any suggestions", - emphasizes columnist Volodymyr Harets (Ua.tribuna.com, 31.03.23).
"Tribune" lists numerous cases of gross refereeing errors this season and leads to the conclusion that the Italian duo of heads of Ukrainian referees Luciano Lucci and Niccolò Rizzoli has not yet given an acceptable result.
The UA-Football site agrees with its colleagues, stating the constant regression of domestic referees, which, among other things, led to the fact that Ukrainian referees were relegated from the first category of UEFA.
"Representation remains in the second category - the least prestigious among those who receive international appointments on the adult men's teams. At the same time, none of our referees received any appointment for international European matches of adult men's teams in the second part of the 2022/23 season.", - writes journalist Ihor Semyon (Ua-football.com, 30.03.23).
In the end, the FutbolHub portal comes to an eloquent conclusion: "Bravo, Association! Ukrainian arbitrators are moving to the bottom" (Footballhub.ua, 28.03.23).
Last week, the Ukrainian mass media continued to actively discuss the topic of the national team, which lost to England in the Euro-2024 qualifiers. After the first wave of analysis of the purely game-related reasons for the defeat, journalists and experts tried to look into the root of the problems - and came to an unequivocal common opinion.
"A disaster from UAF: in 17 months, the country's national team did not have a full-fledged head coach for 175 days. We will not blame Rotan, who rushed to the embrasure and agreed to close the management failures of the UAF. The situation with the coaches of the country's main team over the past year and a half cannot be called anything other than a disaster, managerial chaos and impotence.", says journalist Bohdan Hryshchuk (Sportarena.com, 27.03.23).
"How could we expect anything in the match with England if we haven't played for six months? From the point of view of the preparation of the national team, we completely failed the match against England. It's not the footballers' fault, I don't even know if Rotan is to blame - he was forced into this position, he went and played. We just messed up the preparation for England in six months. In the meantime, England was working, and we were figuring out who our head coach is.", - said the well-known commentator Maksym Gilenko (Fanday.net, 27.03.23).
"Tribune" columnist Oleksandr Sazhko is worried that Ukraine risks losing the potential of its best, in his opinion, football generation, and calls the national team a hostage of UAF.
"The UAF will definitely try to blame all these problems on the war, but this is hypocrisy. Separately, it definitely affected some situations, but the mistakes of the UAF were made much more.
The circus with trainers is a matter of poor planning and terrible communication, not full-scale military operations on the territory of Ukraine. For a year and a half, they say that Rebrov will lead the national team and they see only him as the coach, but he still hasn't come. Is it okay to sacrifice two tackles for the sake of waiting for any coach?” — asks the author rhetorically (Ua.tribuna.com, 26.03.23).
"The results can be partly justified by the difficult circumstances of the war. But, again, would they be so bad if decisions were made on time and logically with the coaches, and the national team received sparring sessions as needed and when needed, and the organization of the entire process was not led by this UAF? We'll never know, but for some reason it seems like the last almost 20 months couldn't be worse.
The biggest pity is the players who are capable of being much better in this lineup. But when you don't have stability and logic with the coach, when you don't have systematic organization of the process, sparring and everything else around the team, it's impossible to show the maximum result.
We now have a fantastic generation of players, which is confirmed by the largest number of Ukrainians in the top leagues in history. And there are some cool young talents on the way. This does not mean that we have to be a top team and beat England. This does not mean that the team has to be perfect. But things don't have to be as depressing as they are now. And it is the UAF that is responsible for the chaos of the last 20 months", - emphasizes Sazhko (Ua.tribuna.com, 26.03.23).
Orest LELEKA