Championship of Ukraine U-19: the three best teams of last season hold the lead

12.12.2022 14:01

Photo by fco.com.ua

Before the start of the 2022/2023 season, regarding the possibility of holding which there were a lot of fears (after all, Ukraine is waging a war against an aggressor and lives in a system of constant threats), we did forecasts regarding the potential leaders of the U-19 championship. The assumption was made that last season's top three teams - Rukh, Dynamo and Shakhtar - would maintain their leadership, given the stability of the squad and strong financial backs.

But it was not very clear whether anyone would be able to compete with this trio. "Metalist 2022" and "Zorya" suffered huge losses in the first half of 1925 (they took fourth and fifth places last season), and not only them. Take at least Dnipro-1. And according to this logic, there were only two more teams that could at least somehow impose a struggle on the leaders - "Vorskla" and "Olexandria".

And so it happened. Even during the seven starting matches, the team of Alexandria did not lose points and were inferior in the tournament table of "Rukh" only due to the smaller number of games played. And so it was until the calendar brought Oleksandr Karpov's wards with Shakhtar. The players, having a numerical advantage in the middle of the first half, opened the scoring in the match, and after the referee sent off their player, the opponents exchanged goals. As a result, it was the first defeat and the first loss of points in "Alexandria", which was followed by others: "Dynamo" - 0:3, "Zorya" - 3:3, "Rukh" - 1:2. In all four of these cases, the Alexandrians were shown a red card (with the Lugansks - even two).

Despite this, taking into account the two matches in reserve, "Alexandria" is in the group of four contenders, if not for the championship title, then for the prize place - for sure.

"Vorskla", whose head coach changed before the start of the season (Vasyl Baranov, who previously coached "Zorya" U-19 team, came), the tournament position is not so convincing. Although the Poltava players are higher than "Colossus" in terms of points lost, they are still lower in terms of points scored. And they can claim a medal only in a very fantastic scenario, since in personal meetings with the leaders they scored only one point out of 12 possible.

In general, if you take the standings, made up of only the matches played between the first six clubs, then "Vorskla" is the worst (although it has a match with "Shakhtar" in reserve), and the leaders are the footballers of Ihor Kostyuk: "Dynamo" - 12 points (5 games), "Rukh" — 11 (5), "Alexandria" — 6 (5), "Shakhtar" — 5 (4), "Kolos" — 4 (5), "Vorskla" — 1 (4).

... Separately, it is worth recalling the very successful performance at the first stage of the season by two representatives of Ukraine in the UEFA Youth League. For the first time in 10 years of holding the tournament, two of our teams are at the same time made their way until the playoff round, which will take place for them on February 8, 2023. The draw was made between "Rukh" and the Italian "Inter" (Lviv - the hosts), as well as the Croatian "Hajduk" and "Shakhtar" (minors - the guests).

For Shakhtar, this is the first passage beyond the first stage of the UEFA Youth League since 2015 (during this time, the orange-and-black team were twice third in the group, three times fourth). Two defeats against Spanish "Real" (1:6, 0:3) were compensated by 10 points scored by Oscar Ratulutra's wards in matches against German "Leipzig" (2:0, 0:0) and Scottish "Celtic" (2 :1, 1:0).

And for Rukh, the current season is actually the debut season. And it turns out to be surprisingly successful: Vitaliy Ponomarev's team first defeated the Polish "Zaglembe" (1:0, 0:0), and then the Turkish "Galatasaray" (3:1, 3:1) on the Road of Champions.

Standings

Scorers: Vladyslav POGHORILY (Shakhtar) — 15, Yaroslav BAZAEV (Alexandria) — 9, Andriy MATKEVICH (Dynamo), Denys PIDGURSKY (Rukh), Timur TUTEROV (Colossus), Oleg FEDOR (Rukh) ), Anton TSYGANKOV ("Kryvbas") - 7, Ilya KVASNYTSYA ("Movement"), Vitaly LOBKO ("Zorya"), Denis TESLYUK ("Movement"), Dmytro CHERNYSH ("Vorskla"), Dmytro SHOSTAK ("Alexandria" ), Oleksandr Yushchenko (Shakhtar) — 6, Ihor HORBACH (Dynamo), Ivan DAVIDENKO (Alexandria), Yuriy MYKHAILIV (Lviv), Danylo TUZENKO (Vorskla), Oleksandr YATSIK (Dynamo ) — 5.