Black September of Ukrainian Soccer
Europe has given a cool welcome to Ukraine’s soccer envoys. While our Champions League participants still have an opportunity to somewhat improve their standing by winning at least some more points or perhaps even contesting second places in their groups, the start of Kryvbas and Vorskla in the UEFA Cup tournament is nothing less than a catastrophe.
It has always been an open secret that our third and fourth place clubs are by no means European soccer trend-setters. Nobody in fact demanded that the Poltava and Kryvy Rih players win the honorary European trophy. All both teams had to do was just do a good job and show Europe that Ukraine also has teams other than Kyiv Dynamo. Otherwise, what is the point of all the talk about winning “the right to represent this country in the Eurocup?”
Having arrived in the bleak dimly lit Ukrainian cities from affluent countries, the exotic guests were first curiously looking at the unusual stadiums and listening to the empty grandstand in Poltava and full one in Kryvy Rih. Then, already accustomed to the pitch and floodlights, the guests from Portugal and France took their wins without any strenuous efforts and went home, thus robbing other European clubs of the chance to visit our mysterious country in October.
It would not have been so shameful to lose if our clubs had played true European star-studded grandees, such as Lazio or Manchester United. But neither Nantes nor Boa Vista are grandees. They are run-of-the-mill provincial teams which often lose domestic games by several goals. Another example is the semi-professional Norwegian Rosenborg which beat the famous star-studded Paris St. Germaine in a home match.
We have again received a slap in the face from European soccer and pulled down a peg. While formerly this kind of thing could happen in August, now it does in September. Is this progress? But could it be otherwise now that our national championship has in fact become an appendage to the participation of at first one and now two squads in the Champions League? Could it be otherwise if Ukraine’s both representatives in the UEFA Cup have considerable financial problems as a result of which half the Kryvbas side had to moonlight in Russia and several Vorskla players just vanished into thin air after they were not paid on time? Despite claims that we have professional soccer, what we have in fact is the desire of a number of players to earn big money and the desire of Professional Soccer League leaders to distribute it. There was a good opportunity to ask the Portuguese and French guests, who came to visit the Poltava and Kryvy Rih “professionals,” about how true professional clubs exist. In all probability, they were not asked this, so Boa Vista and Nantes left for home, leaving our teams to quarrel over the composition of the delegations to be sent to second- leg matches, to demand being paid their promised bonus, and to play in our professional soccer top division.
Meanwhile, in September alone, the national team and the leading clubs have already lost 5 matches out of 5, four of them at home.
