and brought myself closer to gold

Ukrainian Championship

Over the weekend, seven matches of the 26th round of the Ukrainian Football Championship took place. The last and, perhaps, the most interesting game of the tour will take place tonight in Kyiv, where Dynamo will host Dnepr Dnepropetrovsk. And Shakhtar Donetsk beat Illichivets in Mariupol (2:1) and was able to catch up with the Kiev team in terms of points for at least a day.

Victory in this match was not easy for Shakhtar. The scoring was opened in the 36th minute by Ciprian Marica, who was the first to score. After Dario Srna's shot from 18 meters, Mariupol goalkeeper Andrei Nikitin managed to reach the ball, after which it hit the crossbar and bounced into the field. The first to finish was Marika, who opened the scoring in the match with a header. The home team equalized in the 56th minute after a quick counter-attack. The author of the goal was Alexei Gai, who once played for Shakhtar. Having conceded a goal, the miners immediately rushed to attack. In the 79th minute, one of the most active players of the match, Darijo Srna, burst into the Illichivets penalty area, where he was brought down - a penalty. Francelino Matuzalem's shot was accurate - 2:1.

The second victory in the spring part of the championship was won by Metallurg Donetsk, which continues to fight for bronze medals in the Ukrainian championship. Stepan Matviiv's team barely beat Krivoy Rog Krivbass on their home field. As part of Metallurg, Sergei Zakarlyuka entered the field, who was put up for transfer, but according to the regulations did not have the right to move to another team, since he had already played in the current championship for two clubs - Illichivets and Donetsk Metallurg. And for the Krivoy Rog Krivbass, Maxim Startsev, a candidate for the Ukrainian national team, took his place in goal after a long break due to injury.

Already in the 17th minute, the home team's player Venance Zeze (for whom the match with Kryvbas was his debut in the championship), being in the center of the field, passed the ball to Vadim Melnik. Vadim entered the penalty area at speed and fired across the goalkeeper's area. The first to reach the ball was Venance himself, who headed it from four meters and scored the ball into an empty net. And six minutes later a similar situation arose at the Metallurg gate. Krivbass midfielder Alexander Trishovich passed the ball into the penalty area, and home defender Arsen Ne cut the ball into his own goal. However, just two minutes later Metallurg took the lead again. The author of the goal this time was Vadim Melnik, who, after a corner kick, received an accurate pass from Venance Zeze and, being three meters from the goal, scored the ball into the visitors' goal. In the end, everything was decided in the 71st minute, when, after a free kick, Vyacheslav Checher scored the third goal. However, in the 89th minute, Alexander Ivashchenko sent the ball into the far bottom corner of the goal with a beautiful shot from the penalty area. But the scored goal did not save Alexander Kosevich’s team from defeat - 3:2.

On the Chernomorets coaching bench in the match against Kharkov, the head coach of the Odessa club and assistant coach of the Ukrainian national team Oleg Blokhin, Semyon Altman, reappeared, who had been undergoing treatment in one of the Odessa clinics for the last two weeks. It is interesting that in the meeting of these two teams, two assistant coaches of the national and youth teams of Ukraine met - Oleg Blokhin and Alexey Mikhalichenko, who is assisted by the Kharkov team coach Gennady Litovchenko. The match between the teams, which before this round occupied third (Chernomorets) and sixth places in the standings, ended in a victory for the Odessa team with a minimal score (1:0), which allowed them to break away from their main competitor in the fight for bronze - Mariupol Illichivets - by four points. Andrey Kirlik scored the goal in the last minute of the match from a penalty kick.

The 26th round will end today with a match in Kyiv, where Dynamo will host Dnepr Dnepropetrovsk.

KONSTANTIN DULTSEV

Shakhtar pushed their opponents away from bronze