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:

Ukrainian League Again

The Ukrainian Premier League is getting interesting again.

After a defeat (by the score of 1-3) at Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk last matchday, last-season champions Shakhtar Donetsk could have gone back on top with a win, at home, against Metalist Kharkiv (who have just been disqualified by UEFA from the Champions League for match fixing!)

But things are many times not as easy as they may seem.

So was the case for Mircea Lucescu's team.

The game ended 1-1, and Metalist remained on top.
Moreover, the visitors should have had two penalties. In the first half, the team from Kharkiv should have been awarded a penalty kick after a Shakhtar Donetsk clearly held the shirt of one of Metalist's forwards for a long time, impeding him from playing a dangerous cross. And, towards the end, at 1-1, again there was extremely aggressive unpunished blocking by Shakhtar defenders, in their own penalty area.

Shakhtar scored first, with a quickly headed-in cross, but Metalist equalized with 13 minutes remaining, again from a header.
And it looks like the team from Donetsk finally has some solid competition.

Hopefully, nobody is going to run away with this title, at least not for a while.

Tomorrow, Dynamo Kyiv (surprisingly, only sixth in the table right now,) is playing Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk.

Highlights from Shakhtar - Metalist:

Ukraine - UEFA Club Competitions Participants - 2013-2014

Shakhtar Donetsk --> Champions League Group Stage
Metalist Kharkiv --> Champions League Third Qualifying Round
Dynamo Kyiv --> Europa League Play-off Round
Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk --> Europa League Play-off Round
Metalurh Donetsk --> Europa League Third Qualifying Round
Chornomorets Odessa --> Europa League Second Qualifying Round

Ukraine - UEFA Club Competitions Participants - 2012-2013

Shakhtar Donetsk --> Champions League Group Stage
Dynamo Kyiv --> Champions League Third Qualifying Round
Metalist Kharkiv --> Europa League Play-off Round
Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk --> Europa League Play-off Round
Arsenal Kyiv --> Europa League Third Qualifying Round
Metalurh Donetsk --> Europa League Second Qualifying Round

Metalist, Probably Out of Contention

For a while there, Metalist Kharkiv was getting close to the Ukrainian giants, Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk.

But, lately, they haven't been doing well in the league.
They only got one point from the last two encounters, and are seemingly out of the title race.

Meanwhile, of course, Dynamo kept winning, while Shakhtar hasn't lost a point since a good while back, too.
Dynamo Kyiv is still unbeaten.

There are six more matches to go, besides this one, though.

Highlights from Arsenal Kyiv - Metalist 4-2:

Арсенал - Металлист. Голы by ezhihno

Shakhtar Loses Ground

Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk played valiantly in Donetsk on Sunday, and succeeded to take one point from the champions.

They even opened the scoring, in minute 29, but Shakhtar tied it only 11 minutes later. Lucescu's team could not get the win, however.

Given Dynamo Kyiv 's victory, 1-0 against Arsenal Kyiv, the gap between Shakhtar and the leaders increases by two points, to three. Dynamo has 55, Shakhtar 52.
And Metalist is now closer to Shakhtar than Shakhtar is to Dynamo. The Kharkiv team is trailing the Donetsk team by 2 points.

The second-placed team in the Ukrainian Premier League gets to participate in the Champions League play-offs, with a chance to reach the group stage.

Highlights from Shakhtar - Dnipro 1-1:


Highlights from Dynamo - Arsenal K. 1-0:

Metalist Leaves It Late... Real Late!

Only in the fifth minute of injury time was Metalist Kharkiv, the team that massacres opponents in the Europa League, able to score the winning goal against Obolon Kyiv, the last-placed team in the Ukrainian league.

Serhiy Pshenychnykh was the one who scored. His was a powerful shot, from outside the box, exactly when both the goalkeeper and the rest of the Obolon defense were dreaming of the final whistle and forgetting about blocking all chances for shooting.

Seeing that goal, and only that goal, one will probably wonder: "And this was barely in minute 90 +5? Where was this kind of game play in the rest of the game?" 

Well, anyway, the three points are theirs now, and the nice thing is that finally somebody seemingly has the potential to break the domination of the big two (Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk).
At the current time, Dynamo has 52 points, Shakhtar has 51, and Metalist 50. (But not to forget that Metalist played one more game.)


Highlights: