Friday 13 September 2013

Shakhtar, Fourth??!?

FC Karpaty Lviv is no big force in the Ukrainian league.

But with Shakhtar Donetsk struggling - they haven't won a match for the third round in a row - it's not as big a surprise as it would ordinarily be that Karpaty beat Shakhtar!
Final score: 3-2. And Karpaty even led 3-1 (for about 10 minutes).

Karpaty played really quickly, and were inspired as well, on the counter-attack, but Shakhtar made some bad errors in defense, too, facilitating all of Karpaty's goals.
Especially the third goal by the home team, scored by Bartulovic, made the Shakhtar back line look foolish, as the ball traveled a very long way, following a free kick, to sneak in untouched at the far post.

So, with only one point from the last possible nine, and if Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk achieves a very logical home win against bottom-side Tavriya, on Sunday, Mircea Lucescu's team could be fourth in the standings by the end of this matchday.
That is partly because surprise side Chornomorets Odessa also won today, beating Metalurh Zaporizhya, 1-0 away from home. (They're second in the table, at the present time, but could be overtaken by Dnipro, with a win.)

They could have been first, for at least 2 days, if they had won in Lviv, but now they could end up fourth. And the race for the title could become a five-horse race, if Dynamo Kyiv beats Metalist Kharkiv, away, on Sunday.
Maybe Shakhtar was concentrating more on their Champions League start, in San Sebastian, against Spanish team Real Sociedad, on Tuesday. That, despite the fact that Metalist threatens to run away with the league, based on their current form.

Highlights:

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