Renowned journalist Artem Frankov has shared his forecast for the match of the 30th matchday of the Ukrainian championship between Kyiv "Dynamo" and "Metalist 1925".
Artem Frankov- The match of the last round of the Ukrainian championship is closely linked in content with a number of other matches taking place in parallel. It will take place not in Kharkiv, of course, but in Kyiv, but at the NTC named after Bannikov near the House of Football - to somehow mark the advantage of the hosts. Let me remind you of the schedule.
What in UPL remains unclear? The fate of second place, which, unfortunately, has nothing to do with this match. At the same time, the question number two becomes clear: who will go to the playoffs - to fight to the death with the teams of the first league for the right to play in the UPL in the season 2023/2024. Hence the conclusion about the motivation: Metalist 1925 is very interested in a positive result of the match in order to get rid of the spectre of playoffs (it`s not a disaster, but a nuisance - at least serious additional costs to the club, not to mention the possibility of losing), Dynamo is much freer to exercise their professional skills, because no one and nothing can move it from the fourth place.
So, the position of the teams at the end of the standings: "Minay", "Kolos" - 33, "Chernomorets" - 32, "Metalist 1925", "Rukh", "Ingulets" - 31, "Veres" - 28. "Metalist and Lviv have already said goodbye to UPL slowly and sadly. All of them play in this round, and all of them, by and large, need a result - some more, some less.
It is also useful to remember that in the case of ties in points, the UPL regulations (Article 22) dictate, above all, to take into account meetings between all contending teams, and we can well see from the table that there are variations where three or four teams gain 31 or 32 points each. So, the position of "1925" in these head-to-head encounters is not very happy, and therefore the result against Dynamo is very much needed by the team of the former Ukrainian national team player Edmar-Halovskiy.
Another question is whether Kharkiv team is able to cope with Kyiv, even without Vanatay and Sidorchuk (disqualified). It must be recalled that the round before Dynamo failed to notice even more motivated Veres, defeating them 3-0. So, let us not invent anything, assuming that Lucescu's Shovkovskiy team will continue to apologize to the fans for the season as a whole by the end of the championship.
However, there is an unpleasant memory for the Kyivians. On November 26, in the match of the first round Dynamo, and still with Tsygankov and Zabarny, failed to score to 1925 at the native Lobanovskii - 0:0. The Kharkiv side, of course, will be warmed by this fact, although they will have a slightly different team playing half a season from now.
My bet: just a Dynamo win doesn't suit the odds, so let's take... There is a choice: Dynamo with (-1.5) for 2.25 or 2 and TV 2.5 for 2.05. To me, of course, the first odds are more sympathetic - let's trust Dynamo again," Frankov said.
