Championship of Ukraine U-19: "Shakhtar" starts the spring part in the status of a leader

22.02.2024 10:00

Photo by shakhtar.com

The winter break in competitions under the auspices of the Ukrainian Premier League has almost come to an end, and already today, February 22, the first match of the spring part of the Ukrainian U-19 championship will take place: "LNZ" will host "Kryvbas".

The next day, within the 18th round, "Rukh" and "Polyssia", "Veres" and "Kolos", "Dnipro-1" and "Minai" will play, and on February 25, the games "Zorya" and "Vorskla" are scheduled. Metalist 1925" - "Dynamo", "Olexandria" - "Shakhtar" and "Obolon" - "Chornomorets".

We will remind that almost all the matches were played in the autumn - except for two. The match between Chornomorets and Shakhtar (12th round) was postponed in advance. But the meeting between "Shakhtar" and "Metalist 1925" (16th round) did not take place due to certain problems of Kharkiv residents. By the decision of the UAF KDK dated December 7, 2023, Metalist 1925 was awarded a technical defeat with a score of 0:3, and Shakhtar was awarded a technical victory - 3:0. After a pause during which the decision could be appealed, the standings were adjusted accordingly and Shakhtar topped it with a game in hand.

It is logical that Oleksiy Belyk's team is currently the main favorite for the 2023/2024 season. Young miners conducted winter training in Turkey, played many sparring matches with representatives of other countries - club teams from Qatar, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Hungary, national teams of Jordan and Iraq. "Shakhtar" U-19 played the last control match against "Dinaz" from Vyshhorod, a member of the first league of Ukraine, and won with a score of 2:1.

It is worth emphasizing that perhaps the main star of the U-19 miners' team is central midfielder Viktor Tsukanov, who turned 4 on February 18. In the winter, he signed a new contract with the club.

Meetings were also held in Turkey by principal competitors of Oleksiy Belyk's wards from Dynamo. Igor Kostyuk's team played fewer sparring matches, but also with representatives of other countries (Czech Republic, Kyrgyzstan, Denmark), gaining some international experience. Matvii Ponomarenko, the top scorer of the current season in the U-19 championship, central defender Taras Myhavko and goalkeeper Vyacheslav Surkis joined the training sessions of the capital club's first team.

Imad Ashur's wards from Dnipro-1 trained at home, although a large group of young talents flew to Turkey with the base: Vladyslav Krapyvtsov, Oleksiy Avramenko, Ramik Hadjiev, Maksym Melnychenko, Ilya Badenko, Ivan Chaban.

Radical corrections were made by the leadership of "Movement". First, at the beginning of January, another change took place in the coaching staff - the U-19 team was headed by the director of the club's academy Yuriy Bakalov, who replaced Serhiy Zadorozhny (he remained in the structure of the Lviv club - in the scouting and selection department).

Secondly, according to Bakalov, a decision was made to rejuvenate the U-19 team. Someone went with the main squad to training in Slovenia, someone came under Volodymyr Bezubyak in "Rukh-2", which plays in the second league. Most likely, the rejuvenated Lviv team will no longer be able to defend the championship title in competition with Shakhtar, Dynamo and Dnipro-1 this season, although only official matches will give answers to all questions.

"Alexandria" also took a group of young talents to Turkey with the first team. And the youth team stayed at home, where Viktor Bytsiura was actively engaged in selection work. How updated we will see the fifth team of the U-19 championship, the upcoming rounds will show.

"Colossus" U-19 football players who took part in the traditional Oleg Makarov Memorial (held since 1996) also worked at home. Oleksandr Pozdeev's wards reached the quarterfinals, after which they played several more sparring matches. Two pupils of the youth team — Oleg Kryvoruchko and Artem Husol — held a winter meeting with the core of Kovaliv residents.

And another representative of the U-19 championship leader group — "Polissya" — flew with the first team to Spain, where the players also gained international experience and took an example from the base.

The Zhytomyr team has already played one of their second round matches against the top-3 teams this season — they lost to the Dnipro team back in December (2:3), and in general they will have time to test their strength before the March break for national team matches (after the 21st round). against the background of "Rukh" (18th round, already on February 23) and "Alexandria" (20th).

In general, we expect a large number of principled matches between the leaders. Only in one round (the 21st) will the top 7 (as of now) play with representatives of the lower part of the tournament table. And the hottest meetings remain at the end of the season: "Dnipro-1" - "Dynamo" (26th round), "Shakhtar" - "Dynamo" (28th), "Dnipro-1" - "Shakhtar" (29th ). Although we should not exclude the possibility that closer to the end of April the tournament schedules will be slightly different.

Standings

Scorers: Matviy PONOMARENKO (Dynamo) — 16, Mykhailo RASKO (Polyssia) — 11, WENDELL (Dnipro-1), Vladyslav OSTROVSKY (Metalist 1925, Vorskla) — 9, Dmytro HODYA (Veres) ), Yehor KOMYSHAN ("Alexandria"), Dmitry KREMCHANIN ("Dynamo"), Viktor TSUKANOV ("Shakhtar") - 7, Oleksiy BEZRUCHUK ("Colossus"), Artem HUSOL ("Colossus"), Artem PETRYK ("Alexandria" ) — 6, Volodymyr VILIVALD ("Kryvbas"), Anton GLUSCHENKO ("Shakhtar"), Denys Zhdanov ("Dnipro-1"), Artem SERDYUK ("Vorskla"), Artem SLESAR ("Zorya"), Vadym SOLOGUB (" Metalist 1925"), Viktor TRIGUB ("Colossus") — 5.