First League. Instead of the scheduled 18 participants, only 16 will compete

19.07.2018 17:50

In one of the last sparring events, Prykarpattya conceded in the Vinnytsia movement. Photo by fcruh.com

The pre-competition campaign of the participants of the first-class championship of Ukraine ended quite unexpectedly. Initially, it was planned that in the second strongest national tournament will be 18 teams, but closer to mid-July, the organizers had to make urgent adjustments.

The fact is that Naftovyk-Ukrnafta, which was offered to replace the disbanded FC Poltava, did not provide financial guarantees and lost the status of a team of masters. For the same reason, Phoenix from Bucha, the successor of Stali (Kamyanske), which competed in the elite division last season, also failed. That is why the leadership of the PFL of Ukraine had no choice but to adopt a backup option with 16 participants…

So far, it is difficult to say what the exchange between the leagues will be like, much will depend on whether the number of teams in the strongest class will increase next year. The season starts in the first division with a confrontation in Ivano-Frankivsk, where the local Prykarpattia will host the Balkans. The hosts were surprised by the low performance in the control matches. Ivano-Frankivsk leader Volodymyr Kovalyuk explains this by the fact that due to injuries not all sparring players Ihor Khudobiak, experienced midfielders Volodymyr Boryshkevych and Oleh Vepryk, mobile station wagon Orest Janusz were able to take part. But the mentor was pleased with the coordinated actions of the wards in defense. But, agree, without goals you can not win. That is why the Prykarpattia should focus on finding reserves at the end of the offensive.

As for "Balkan", in the first round the sports honor of the team from Zorya will be defended by 23 football players, among whom there is no famous scorer Serhiy Kuznetsov, who has switched to coaching. By the way, Andriy Parkhomenko's wards in sparring were also not all right with the sight, but in the "Balkans" they hope to correct the situation by inviting Ruslan Palamar, who was happy with the performance in his previous team, "Pearl".

Of course, fans are primarily interested in which clubs have the best chance to rise in the rankings. In our opinion, first of all it concerns "Ingulets", which, let us remind you, lost the opportunity to get a pass to the elite only at the end of last season. Ingulets fans hope that FC has already drawn the right conclusions from this relative failure. By the way, the head coach of the team from Petrov Serhiy Lavrynenko believes that the class of participants of the current championship is approximately equal, and therefore there will be no qualifying matches. To strengthen the competition, the coaching staff of Ingulets invited qualified recruits to each link: goalkeeper Anton Sytnikov from Obolon-Brovar, defender Stanislav Peredisty from Dnipro-1, midfielder Ilya Kovalenko from PFC Sumy and striker Artem Kozlov from ».

The newcomer of the first division, Dnipro-1, does not hide his ambitious plans, despite a certain imbalance in control matches, which head coach Dmytro Mykhaylenko explains by the appearance of a whole group of new performers and the related lack of teamwork. However, Dnipro-1 hopes that the famous Serhiy Chebotayev from Oleksandriya, Stanislav Kulish from Veres, Oleksiy Chichikov and Ihor Zahalsky from Zirka and Artem Shchedry from Olimpik will soon become their team.

It is aimed at returning to the Premier League and Volyn, which barely escaped relegation last season. The new head coach Andriy Tlumak in his selection work relied on experienced performers. In particular, the Slovenian grenadier Micha Horopevšek, who was recently nominated for the first-league Polish club Olimpia (Grudziadz), returned to Lutsk.

However, the same ambitious plans of several participants, so you can predict a sharp struggle for a place under the sun…