Ukraine: Premier League round 20 preview part 1/2

PFC Sevastopol- FC Shakhtar Donetsk, DATE: March 3, 2011, Venue: Locomotive Stadium, Simferopol, Crimea, Ukraine, Kick-off time: 19:00

In order to better prepare for their second leg UCL tie against AS Roma, FC Shakhtar requested that the game be played on Thursday instead of on the weekend.  Shakhtar will probably feature their strongest side in order to get players into full match fitness before the game on Tuesday.  The game against Ukrainian champions comes as an early test for the new PFC Sevastopol coach Angel Chervenkov.  The Crimean side has 11 games to avoid relegation.  There is no doubt who the favorite is for this game; only with strong defending does the Sevastopol side has a chance of positive outcome.  Since Sevastopol's home stadium is going through renovations, the two sides will meet in the Crimean capital Simferopol, a venue where Sevastopol played all of their home matches in the fall half of the season.

FC Metalurg Zaporizhzha- FC Illichivets Mariupol, DATE: March 4, 2011, Venue: Slavutych-Arena, Zaporizhzha, Ukraine, Kick-off time: 17:00

The second game of the spring campaign will feature sides fighting to avoid relegation.  FC Illichivets brought 12 new players and experienced coach in order ensure survival.  On the other hand little has changed in the Metalurg's camp, majority of the squad is the same as in the fall.  This game will shine the light on how serious is Metalurg's owners at avoiding relegation.

Ukraine: Premier League 2011 spring half preview, part 2/4.

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 Bistriţa.  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.

Ukraine: Premier League 2011 spring half preview, part 1/4.

The common feature of the last few seasons is that teams in the bottom half completely revamp their squads (8 to 15 new players) in order to insure survival.  Two different strategies are used to achieve this: first, the teams have try-outs for 20 to 30 unattached players, mainly players from neighboring leagues.  The other strategy is to fill your squad with talented reserve team players from the major clubs like Dynamo, Shakhtar, and Dnipro.  The players they get on loan are very talented but young and inexperienced.  The former strategy is widely used especially for the clubs which were promoted to the Premier League.  For example: in the beginning of this season PFC Sevastopol almost completely changed the team that won promotion.  Clubs at the foot of the table usually are not well financed and can’t solely depend on their own academy products, which means that cheap players are the way to rearm.  The latter strategy was used by two clubs last season during the winter campaign.  After months of financial uncertainty both FC Zoria Lugansk and FC Kruvbass Kryvyy-Rig were acquired by new owners.  To save the team from relegation Zoria’s coach brought in a few experienced signings from other Premier League clubs plus a half  dozen FC Shakhtar Donetsk reserve players.  At first, the side struggled for points and stayed just above the relegation zone.  But after the first four games the team finally started to produce results.  The club finished a few points above the relegation zone.  

Another case last season was FC Kryvbass, who at the winter break were at the foot of the table and destined for relegation (7 points in 20 games).  In the winter break the club acquired a new young head coach (not without controversy) from FC Obolon Kyiv, where he was successful at bringing the club to the top division and finishing in the top 10 after the first half of the season.  From Obolon he also brought a few players to Kryvbas.  But his main talent came from loaning young players from Dynamo and Dnipro.   Results didn’t come easy at first.  The club picked up points where it could, but it didn’t look like it would be enough to survive.  Only a few weeks before the end of the campaign the club got a surprising victory away at Karpaty (0:2), who finished 5^th in the league that year, and now were in touching distance from safety.  It all came down to the last game of the season.  The club started the day a point behind FC Chornomorets Odesa and needed a win in order to have any chance to stay up.  The club won its game 3:1 against FC Zakarpattia and Chornomorets drew against FC Zoria, which meant that the club would stay in the top division for another season.

Here is part 1 of the spring half preview starting with the clubs at the bottom.

FC Matalurg Zaporizhzha (16th)

Before the start of the 2010/2011 season, rumors were circling in the popular media that the club might be sold.  A prominent businessmen was rumored to be in talks with club officials, but negotiations came to a halt and the club started the campaign with the same people in charge.  It would be an understatement to say that the club struggled in the first half of the campaign.  The club finished with ten points and only one win.  No drastic changes were made during the winter break.  The club continued their policy of selling their best talent to other premier league clubs. Team leaders Arzhanov and Polevoy made the move to Arsenal Kyiv, while Nevmyvaka joined FC Illichevets. During pre-season training, the club looked at anywhere from 10 to 20 players, signing new contracts with only 2.  If no progress is made in terms of the club’s ownership, it is hard to see the club staying another year in the Ukrainian Football Premier League.

PFC Sevastopol (15th)

During the winter break the club got some much needed financial injection.  The first major acquisition for the club was the hiring of experienced Bulgarian coach Angel Chervenkov.  Besides his vast experience in charge of top Bulgarian clubs, the new coach also brought his proven knowledge of the European transfer market.  The club signed a number of players who have experience in western Europe like Besart Ibraimi from Shalke 04 and Georgian international Mate Ghvinianidze from 1860 Munich. In addition to changes on the field, the club finally made a deal with the local government about long term loan of the stadium.  The first half of the season the club was forced to play in Simferopol since their home ground didn’t pass minimum requirements of the UFPL.  The stadium needed major renovations, which the club started to implement in January after the deal with the city government was signed.  The goal for the remaining 11 games is to stay up in the division, the gap is 4 points. 

FC Illichivets Mariupol (14th)

Illichevets represents a team with the most turnover both on and off the field.  In December the club restructured, and are rumored to be in the ownership of one of Rinat Ahmetov’s business partners.  The first major change was the appointment of former FC Shakhtar Donetsk reserves coach Valeriy Yaremchenko.  The reaction of the fans was negative and a small group of them made a public protest at the first press conference.  With the renewed ties with Shakhtar the first newcomers to the team were loan signings of Shakhtar players. The first cohort featured players who played the first half of the season at FC Zorya.  At the same time all of the foreign players left the club.  For the first pre-season training camp the club invited another half a dozen Shakhtar products, this time from the reserve team, who Yaremchenko is very familiar with.  The total number of new players at the club is 12, 11 of which are on loan from Shakhtar Donetsk.  The sole non-Shakhtar player is the former Metalurg Zaporizhzha and Ukraine U21 international Dmytro Nevmyvaka.  The majority of pre-season the club spent in Turkey, playing 8 matches.  The most notable wins came against FC Minsk of Belarus (3:1), and Danish side Brøndby IF.  In the interview last week Yaremchenko noted that his side will need 12 points in the remaining 11 games to insure survival.

FC Kryvbas Kryvyy Rig (13th)

FC Kryvbas still remains one of the most mysterious clubs in Ukrainian football.  With financing from unknown sources and close links with FC Dnipro, the club spent the last two seasons in the bottom half of the table with their aim only of survival.  In the summer the club lost many on loan players from the spring of 2010, which were replaced by less talented players.  The side struggled for most of the fall campaign, which pushed the head coach to made drastic changes in the winter break.  The young, on-loan winger Dmytro Homchenovskyy decided against signing a full contract and instead went on trials first to FC Metalurg Donetsk and then FC Zorya.  Seven of FC Dnipro’s on-loan players have also left the team.  In the other direction the club took two FC Dnipro players Fedorchuk and Kankava.  The side also signed Jiří Jeslínek from Sparta Prague and Slovenian midfielder Darian Matic from an Israeli club.  The biggest signing for the club came in the end of February when it was announced that the club signed Ukrainian U21 international striker Volodymyr Lysenko from FC Metalist until the end of the season.  During pre-season the club made two trips to Turkey.  Once again the club is rebuilding the first team, and inconsistent performances will remain.  The main goal for the club is to avoid relegation.

Ukrainian Football Premier League: week in review.

In the time of the year when the weather doesn't permit to train domestically, football clubs from Eastern Europe train in warmer climates.  The most popular training destination for top level clubs from Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus is Turkey.  The country provides teams with numerous hotels and training fields plus plenty of teams to play friendlies against.  The affluent teams from the region choose places like Spain, UAE, or Israel.  Each of those countries usually organizes a tournament for teams training in their land.  Here is a short list of top teams from Ukrainian league and were they are currently located.

FC Shakhtar Donetsk- Spain (Copa del Sol Jan. 27-Feb. 11, 2011).

FC Dynamo Kyiv- Israel

FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk- Spain

FC Metalist Kharkiv- UAE

FC Karpaty Lviv- Spain (Copa del Sol).

FC Metalurg Donetsk- Turkey

FC Vorskla Poltava- Turkey

FC Arsenal Kyiv- Turkey

Clubs to watch in 2011.

FC Arsenal Kyiv (Premier League)

The first team continues to show good results finishing 7th in the league after 19 games and a semifinalist in the domestic cup.  With the signing of two quality players from Metalurg Zaporizhzha the club has a good chance of breaking into Europe for the first time in its history.  The major concern for the club is infrastructure: the club doesn't have a stadium for domestic games, and the contract for a training base in Shchaslyve expired in late December.

FC Zhemchuzhyna-Yalta Yalta (PFL- Persha Liga)

A new club on the block formed in December of 2010.  The team will take place of now defunct FC Feniks-Ilichevets Kalinino.  The project seems to be related to a Russian team by the same name, which was started few years ago.  The financing of the club comes abroad presumably from Russia.  Both clubs have same colors and same shirt makers.  If the club is financed to the same levels as the one in Russia, we would expect to see the team in the top devision in few years.  The club posses little infrastructure but is the only professional club from the city.  The warm climate will help the club to develop quicker since it can train at home almost all year long.

FC Sumy (PFL- Druga Liga)

After decade of uncertainty the football club in Sumy (the current one founded in 2008) finally has a bright future.  Last year the club was acquired by a local businessman who promised to turn the club around.  The city of Sumy has a good stadium build in 2001 with capacity of 25,000, which will insure strong support if the club plays in higher divisions.

Useful links:

www.ua-football.com

turnir.com.ua

terrikon.com