First “international” game

For the first time two Ukrainian teams played against each other in an official international tournament. This became possible owing to the fact that three Ukrainian soccer clubs simultaneously advanced to the stage of the tournament when the teams are not seeded according to the country. Besides being a pleasant achievement of our football teams, the duel between Dynamo and Metalist showed what the games between Ukrainian teams can be.

The main difference between this game and similar ones taking place within the framework of national championship was the great attention on the part of the audience and the press. The teams had to play against each other in the European tournament in order to finally gather a full stadium in Kyiv. No game between these two teams has ever been followed by so many fans. Ditto for mass media: the game was broadcast by a leading TV channel, and a maximum possible number of journalists were accredited for the event.

The teams could not respond to such an attention with poor performance. Both Dynamo and Metalist showed nearly their best ever version of soccer. The Kyivites had objectively more reasons to expect success. There were several factors in their favor: the statistics of their meetings with Metalist, the level of players, and their confident victory over this opponent on its field a week ago in the national championship.

This time there was no room for any tactical innovations: the teams know each other too well for this. So everything depended on the way the players would follow their coaches’ instructions and how well they would be able to realize their opportunities on the field. For different reasons the teams could not use their best players. Dynamo’s Andrii Nesmachny and Badr El Kaddouri were missing the game because of disqualification, and Metalist lacked Oleksandr Rykun for unknown reasons. That is why playmaking was done by Jaja Coelho, Edmar, and Walter Acevedo, whereas Kyiv’s halfback Roman Eremenko for the first time was playing as the left defender.

From the first minutes of the game the visitors gave the initiative to the hosts, who outmatched their contenders by all the game indices. Dynamo had the ball in their control longer, hit at the goal more frequently, and made more penalties and corners. The only thing left to be done was converting this advantage into goals. Dynamo had problems with this for a long time, because Metalist’s defense was playing carefully close to the net, its halfbacks prevented fast breaks, and when Dynamo managed to strike, Kharkiv’s goalkeeper Oleksandr Horiainov was always there, safely protecting the goal. He made only one mistake, which determined the outcome of the game: Metalist’s goalkeeper erred when a corner was struck, and Dynamo’s Ognjen Vukojevi scored a goal with a header — 1:0.

The strategy of both teams determined the further flow of events. After taking the lead, Dynamo started to care more about defense and was not persistent in further attacks. For the same reason Metalist was not very eager to equal the score, because, in theory, this can be done in the return game. So, there were no goals anymore, which suited both sides, who will now be preparing for another game with an international status, this time in Kharkiv on March 19, 2009.

No doubt that we will again see a full stadium. It is also obvious that the game will be a tense and interesting struggle. There is only one disturbing thing: why can’t other games between the Ukrainian teams be accompanied with a same atmosphere of a great soccer holiday? Will we have to wait for another year, when two Ukrainian teams happen to meet in the European club tournament, to see it again?

Simultaneously with the Kyiv game, another UEFA game between Moscow CSKA and Donetsk Shakhtar, which had a truly international status, took place. Unfortunately, the Ukrainian team lost.

UEFA Cup, Round of 16. First leg:
                   Dynamo Kyiv 1:0 Metalist Kharkiv.
                   CSKA Moskva 1:0 Shakhtar Donetsk