Famous Ukrainian forward Ivan Sharii gave his opinion on Chornomorets' two recent matches against Shakhtar in the Ukrainian league.
Ivan Sharii"I have two teams that I am worried about - Chornomorets and Vorskla. Poltava have six defeats and one draw in their last seven games. Speaking of Odesa, I feel very bad for them. One match they seem to play well, and then some kind of failure follows. And again: they play one game - and another failure.
In this situation, you can understand Grigorchuk - this is the level of football. Players cannot play two or three matches with dignity. Of course, sometimes it happens that we fail a little bit - it's not without that. But it's not as if after one good game you have four or five failures in a row. What is the reason for this attitude of the players? I don't know. Maybe they are not paid on time and have debts. It's hard to say.
But be that as it may, if you go out on the pitch, then play football. Moreover, the players at Chornomorets are no worse than other teams. Yes, I agree, they are slightly inferior to Shakhtar and Dynamo, and maybe someone else. But the Mariners are on a par with the vast majority of their Premier League rivals. The players who are now in the Odesa team know how to play football. If they did not, they would not have beaten Dynamo in the first round. But you need to go out on the pitch and give your all in every match, not just sporadically. If that were the case, Chornomorets would now have much more points than they do. I would like to see the guys who play for Odesa and its team give their best every match, regardless of any money. Go out and play for your own pleasure, make people who are suffering from the terrible situation in the country happy.
I watched both matches between Pirates and Shakhtar. In the first one, I was quite surprised to see Chornomorets concede the third goal. How can it be possible to behave like that in a lined-up "wall". Sudakov was taking a free kick, and a Chornomorets player from that "wall" dodged the shot, letting the ball fly towards the goal. How was that possible? No one has ever been killed by a ball in football. Well, it might hit you in the stomach or in the nose, but it won't kill you. In hockey, players even lie down under the puck, but here, dodging the ball...
This is unacceptable. You should be suspended for such things - if a footballer is afraid, let him sit and play cards or something else. Needless to say, I had a depressing impression after both Chornomorets' games with Shakhtar. I don't even want to talk about them, believe me.
Odesa had already lost before each of these games. It's not like before, when Chornomorets could compete on equal terms with Shakhtar and Dynamo Kyiv. During my time with the Seafarers, we beat Shakhtar very often, we were an inconvenient team for the Pitmen. However, it turns out that the traditions we established are not upheld by the current generation of players.
During your time at Chornomorets, did you ever see the team lose five matches in a row? This definitely did not happen at Chornomorets during my tenure. Moreover, the team has repeatedly won the Storm of Authority prize. When we took to the pitch, we didn't care who was playing against us - Spartak, Dynamo Kyiv, Tbilisi or Moscow, CSKA. The guys played football, giving it their all and doing their best on the pitch. We gave joy to our fans, who came to the stadium in numbers of 35-40 thousand. The worst attendance figure was 20,000 when teams like Kairat or Neftchi came to Odesa. Even with so many spectators, how can you go on the pitch and play badly? It's a solid audience.
There have always been true football lovers in Odesa, and they knew how to tell the difference between a defeat. It's one thing to lose without a fight, and quite another when you show character and fighting qualities, but something was a little bit lacking and unlucky..." said Shariy.
