Ukrainian Premier League 2009/2010 Overview

Pre-season expectations

Before new Ukrainian championship start on July 17, same two teams were expected to be on top of the league table: Dynamo Kyiv, last season national championship winners and Shakhtar Donetsk, 2008/2009 UEFA Cup holders. According to Ukrainian football fans voting results the team who has the best chances to move one of the two leaders from Champions League zone this season was Metalist Kharkiv, who took third place constantly during the last three years, last season UEFA Cup participants. FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, the club which was just one point away from european competitions last season, was expected to perform well in 2009/2010, club’s midfielders Ruslan Rotan’, Sergiy Nazarenko, and Maksym Kalinichenko form the midfield line of Ukrainian national team.

First rounds overview

Dynamo and Shakhtar started predictably impressive both losing just two points after six rounds, both playing 1-1 draw with FC Vorskia Poltava

Vorskla Poltava. Dynamo home win against Tavriya> worthy of special attention, Shakhtar may lose some points when they play with the team from Simferopol. Metalist Kharkiv is at the fourth place with three points lost in the away game against Dnipro. Tavriya wins four home games in a row taking third place, but the strong opponents are ahead. Dnipro’s performance doesn’t look like serious competition with the leaders, scoring five goals in three games and losing a battle with the league newcomer Obolon guaranteed Dnipro a place in the middle of the tournament table.

Place	Team	Played	Points
1	Dynamo Kyiv	6	16
2	Shakhtar Donetsk	5	13
3	SC Tavriya Simferopol	6	13
4	Metalist Kharkiv	5	12
5	Karpaty Lviv	6	11
6	FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk	6	11

Shevchenko in, Chygrynskiy out

For a long time Champions League Cup holder, a team who won everything it could win during the last year, didn’t buy a player from Ukraine. For a long time 25 million euros wasn’t payed for a player from Ukrainian championship… Let me check… It never did! It will be hard for Chigro to become Barça’s key player, but he will do his best not to betray Guardiola’s trust. Living legend is back home in Kyiv after ten year long absence. Tickets sales rise and fans are excited, because Sheva> came back from Chelsea FC not to sit on a bench, but to score!

Poor start in European leagues

Summer 2009 European leagues qualifications looked like a collapse for Ukrainian teams, they used every chance to lose a game starting from Shakhtar’s defeat from unpretentious Timisoara, followed by Metalist Kharkiv, Vorskla Poltava and FC Metalurh Donetsk elimination from Europa League in the third qualifying round by Sturm Graz, Benfica and FK Austria Wien respectively. Dynamo Kyiv was drawn into Champions League group F, where Barcelona and Inter Milan opposition would be a real challenge, while Shakhtar is going to have less tough times in the Europa League group J facing Toulouse, Brugge and Partizan. Good luck for both Ukrainian clubs in European challenge!

Word to Nostradamus

Forecast for the next three rounds would be around seven points out of nine for Dynamo, Shakhtar and Dnipro. Shakhtar plays with Dnipro in Dnipropetrovsk with a possible draw, and Dynamo faces Metalist away, so two points loss won’t be a big surprise. Tavriya has sort of tough schedule for September with only three obvious points in a game with FC Zorya Luhasik

Zorya Lugansk, more than five points in next three games would be considered as the success. Karpaty Lviv should have two wins against championship outsiders Zakarpattya and Chernomorets> (three points in six games each) and might lose a battle with Dnipro away.

Let’s see what will happen, real challenge is still ahead! :)