FC Zorya Lugansk (12th)
The 2011 winter break marks the one year anniversary since the club was taken over by Donetsk businessman Yevgeniy Geller. Since then the club has established itself as a strong mid-table team. At the same time, 2011 marks the first year of FC Zorya football academy. Unlike the previous year, the side opted to sign a few and yet experienced players. Most of the training camp, which was in Turkey, the team spent building on existing structure. The club decided not to prolong contracts with four FC Shakhtar Donetsk players who were on-loan during the fall campaign. The first major signing in the winter campaign was FC Vorskla and Ukraine international defender Grygoriy Yarmash, The club also signed Georgian striker Djaba Lipartia from FC WIT Georgia of Tbilisi and a few other less notable players. Dmytro Homchenovskyy who was on-loan at FC Kryvbas in the fall half, signed a full contract with Zorya. The player trained with the club for the majority of February. When he first came to the club Yevgeniy Geller announced that his aim was to take the club to European competitions, but this season the club would probably settle for finishing in top half of the table.
FC Obolon Kyiv (11th)
This is Obolon’s second season at the top level. Under Segiy Kovalets, who has been in the club just over a year, they have found it hard to be consistent in the league. On the one hand, Obolon is the only team in the league who beat both Dynamo and Shakhtar in the fall campaign. On the other hand though, the club found it hard to take points off teams in the middle of the table. When the team starts producing consisting results, then they can start at aiming at places higher than mid-table. In the summer period the club has signed a few FC Lviv players, who played for Kovalets in 2009. The club continued with this theme this winter break when it signed four former FC Lviv players, including brothers Baranets who played at FC Karpaty in the fall. As most other Ukrainian clubs, Obolon spent pre-season in Turkey. The club tasted victory only once (11 games) against Rubin Kazan in mid January. All of the new signings came late in the pre-season training campaign and will take time to adjust to the new environment.
FC Metalurg Donetsk (10th)
The biggest mystery going into the winter break was who will become the new head coach at the club. No concrete candidates emerged, and the club went into the first week of training without a head man. In early January the club appointed former FC Saturn head coach Andrey Gordeev, which came as a surprise to many in both Ukraine and Russia. The only top job on the 36 year old’s resume was his two year spell at FC Saturn, who went bankrupt in January 2011. Early in the transfer campaign the club signed on a free, talented FC Tavriya midfielder Denys Golaydo. Former captain Vyacheslav Checher returned from a loan spell at FC Karpaty. Former Metalurg midfielder Ricardo Fernandes also returned to the club. The biggest loss for the club in the pre-season was striker Mguni who moved to Russian side FC Terek Grozniy. The Chechen side became interested in the player after the friendly between the two clubs. Two Brazilian midfielders Felipe Texeira and Klaiton have also left the team. In response Metalurg signed Brazilian striker Junior Moraes from Romanian side Gloria BistriĊ£a. In the last days of February the club signed Macedonian midfielder Mario Gjurovski from Serbian side FK Vojvodina and Polish defender Marcin Kowalczyk on loan from FC Dinamo Moskva. As in the previous two seasons the aim for the team is to place in the Europa League. Most of the pre-season the team spent in Turkey, mainly playing against Russian opponents. Under the new system the team found it hard to produce quality football, which was evident in their 3:1 defeat to PFC CSKA Moskva in early February. Goals were hard to come by with only two pure strikers in the squad. After the arrival of Moraes the team’s game regained balance. The club is currently 10th but is only 6 points away from the last qulifying place. The team has young and talented players who are more than capable of placing the club in the top 6. Gordeev’s first game in charge will be against Dynamo Kyiv, who also feature a Russian coach in Yuri Semin who was in charge of FC Locomotiv Moskva last season.
SC Tavriya Simferopol (9th)
After their trilling victory in the Ukrainian cup in 2010, the team has struggled to perform well on the top level. The team was quickly knocked out of the Europa League in the play-off round in early August. The team continued to struggle on the domestic front which led club officials to fire head coach Sergiy Puchkov. First team coach Valeriy Petrov was appointed as a temporary replacement until the end of the fall campaign. In December the club decided to keep Petrov on a permanent basis, which angered a few first team players. In December Tavriya’s two most prominent players Oleksandr Kovpak and Denys Golaydo signed with Arsenal and Metalurg Donetsk respectively. In the winter break the club didn’t make any grandiose signings limiting themselves to a pair of keepers and a few little know defenders. On the last day of February the club announced the signings of two 19 year olds (d.o.b 1991) FC Shakhtar academy products Petro Oparin and Stanislav Prychynenko who trained with the team for the majority of pre-season. The club also signed Croatian defender Ivan Graf from a Slovenian club. These are testing times for SC Tavriya and it will be interesting to see where the new coach will take them. The pre-season goal of finishing in the top 6 isn’t out of the question, but the club will have stiff competition from both Arsenal Kyiv and Metalurg Donetsk. The team trained both at home and abroad in Turkey.
No comments:
Post a Comment