UEFA Cup: a chance for Ukraine?
Shakhtar Donetsk has finally managed to overcome the resistance of a second- rate French club. After the Ukraine champions narrowly beat Nancy in an away match, one could soberly assess the game and come to the conclusion that Shakhtar showed some high class. But while the ball was still in play, nobody was sure of success, including the Donetsk club’s coaches and players, who were as nervous as if they were taking on an elite European club.
What makes soccer interesting is that, under certain conditions, a weaker team can beat a stronger one. Otherwise, there would be no need to come onto the pitch. Instead, you could just award a neat victory to a stronger club, as is the case in our domestic championship, when weak teams psyche themselves up for defeat in a match against a leader.
The champions of Ukraine played cautiously and slowly during the greater part of the match against France’s 12th best team. It is still a puzzle why the team played this way, because as soon as the Ukrainian side revved up a little, the French defense line began floundering. Getting off to a sluggish start, Shakhtar launched its attacks so slowly that the home team could calmly entrench themselves in defense positions and block all the approaches to their goal area.
Halfback Elano Blumer, a Brazil international in the past six months, did nothing to strengthen Shakhtar’s efforts: he only occasionally joined the play. The mid-field center, which was missing Tymoshchuk, who was sent out in the first match of these teams, had a lackluster showing. It was obvious that the visiting side was mainly trying to keep the ball from flying into its own net and waiting for their opponents to make a mistake, thus allowing them to score a goal.
This tactic proved successful. In the 71st minute, Nancy fullbacks played awkwardly and let Shakhtar’s other Brazilian, Fernandinho, take a striking position. Then the French goalie made a mistake and suddenly conceded an easy goal.
What if there had been no mistakes like this? Could Shakhtar have stormed the Nancy goal area in the final minutes? Would this storming have brought success? Perhaps the Ukrainian squad would have continued to roll the ball in the mid-field, waiting for the rivals to slip up. We will never know the answer now because in the UEFA Cup’s round of 16 Shakhtar will play against Sevilla, the current holder of the European trophy and one of the leaders of the ongoing championship of Spain.
In less than two weeks’ time, on March 8, Shakhtar will play its first match against the Spanish club. This will be a game on a total different level if Sevilla sets itself the goal of achieving success in this European tournament. Incredible as it is to us, the clubs of the leading European championships do not always treat the UEFA Cup as a major event: it is not the Champions League, which holds the entire world’s attention, where every win generates millions of dollars’ worth of cash prizes from UEFA. Sevilla, which easily outplayed the Romanian Steaua, fielded an almost second-string side, keeping the best players well prepared for Spanish championship matches. It will be recalled that the Spaniards “walked over” the same Steaua, which Dynamo Kyiv failed to beat last fall in the Champions League group tournament.
It now looks as though the UEFA Cup is the only European tournament where Ukrainian soccer leaders can really achieve some good results. No matter how hard Shakhtar may tout its European ambitions, qualifying for the 16 best in the no-longer- prestigious UEFA Cup is so far the upper limit for the current team lineup.
This is especially important now, on the eve of the next Ukrainian championship games. The fact that the indisputable contender for national premiership will be playing simultaneously in the UEFA Cup will let everybody see the clear difference between the level of our soccer competitions and Europe’s. Our soccer bosses may make an effort to raise the playing level of Ukrainian teams rather than indulge in petty internecine squabbling.
It is high time to realize that it’s not about the amount of money invested in a team or not only this amount, which sets the level of soccer matches. The fixtures of the latest UEFA Cup round in which the Ukrainian Shakhtar came up trumps appeared to be the last for the Russian CSKA and Spartak, who were knocked out of the competition. This happened despite the fact that in the overall monetary equivalent the Russian championship has already reached the level of the strongest European championships. Speculations about the allegedly high level of the Russian championship, so popular among some people in Ukraine, have crashed against the real results, which proved to be even more modest in Russia than in Ukraine.
In a few days we are going to see the return of spring and big-time soccer, the championship of Ukraine. Who will now deny the claim that our soccer is big, when our champions are continuing the struggle among Europe’s best clubs — if only in the UEFA Cup?
