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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Kyiv Will Witness Two European Cup Tournaments

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

Kyiv Dynamo — champion! This motto, familiar to capital fans since 1961 (when the Ukrainians first broke the hegemony of Moscow teams in Soviet soccer) was heard anew. After Dynamo’s 4:1 convincing victory over Kirovohrad Zirka (Star), it assured itself of the Ukrainian national championship two full games before the end of the season. Since the spring of 1993 they have had six such wins in a row.

This time Dynamo took the gold in the National Cup, defeating in the final TsSKA of Kyiv 2:1.

When the Dynamo stalwarts come to the qualifications for the League of Champions the mandate commission representative of the Cup of Cups will go from the National Cup holder to the other veteran of the finals, TsSKA.

Will Ukrainian soccer benefit from such a monotonous winning by the leading club? I think we will be able to see this only after our team’s performance in the European and World Tournaments. At this stage the achievements of both the National team and Dynamo are convincing. We will remind you the admission of Dynamo to the quarterfinals and the second place in a quite challenging group in the trials for 1998 World Championship.

Some are pleased with Dynamo’s dominance; others are disappointed but can do nothing about it. Many people complain that there is actually no real struggle for first place in National Championship. Is this the truth? In the first round Dnipro from Dnipropetrovsk and Shakhtar (Miner) from Donetsk had the same score as Dynamo. Later on the former was eliminated from the quest for the gold because of a conflict between the coaching staff and club owners. But Shakhtar continued to do its best to the very end.

Let us recall how Valery Lobanovsky, Dynamo head coach, used to say that all the teams would try to catch up with the team-leader if they had one. And now we can look forward to the upcoming Shakhtar games in the UEFA Cup. And the spring rise of TsSKA from the 14th place confounded the best predictions. Changing the situation the team was in with its former head coach (at the beginning of 1998 they had only 16 points out of 45) the followers of two Volodymyrs, Bessonov and Lozynsky, were even improving their tournament rankings. TsSKA will find out who is its first rival in August continental trials will be in early July after the parings in Geneva. There are different options: Ekranas (Panevezys, Lithuania), Konstruktorul (Chisinau, Moldova), TsSKA (Sofia, Bulgaria), Tsement (Concrete) from Armenia, Grevenmacher (Luxembourg), and even Partisan (Guerrilla) from Belgrade. Evidently our Soccer Federation and PFLU will be able to provide an effective help to TsSKA during the upcoming Yuri Day.

Of course, the Ukrainian championship has not rid itself of its problems quite yet. The number of fans in the stadiums is not very big, which is also the fault of journalists. Think of how popular the Russian Championship is now. And Spartak (Moscow) gets first place almost every year. And they have such teams as Zhemchuzhina (Pearl) from Sochi or Baltika from Kaliningrad, teams whose names fail to evoke much emotion with the fans. We are even sure that these Russian teams turn in no better performance than our Vorskla (Poltava) or Niva from Ternopil. But how can we attract the attention of the audience if the National Championship main matches are shown on TV in the daytime when people are busy at work.

Photo by Volodymyr Rasner, The Day:

Dynamo midfield Oleksiy Herasymenko (in white uniform) followed by an honor escort of TsSKA defenders

 

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