4 Things We Learned from the Vysheyshaya Liga Round 19: 24-26 July 2020

1. Energetik Torpedoed

One of these days I'll be able to bring you all some good news about Energetik. The way that we are playing at present, however, it's not clear if that good news might have to wait until next season.

A home game with a Torpedo BelAZ side that had themselves been struggling in the last few weeks offered a good opportunity to get back on track, at least through grabbing a point, if nothing else. Coach Vladimir seems to be using a Rotary Club tombola to pick the team at the moment. "Bakić and Umarov" was the answer to this week's "Who's Playing Up Front Today?" quiz question, whilst Yudchits continued at wing back. the major omission was Mawatu, who after a stormy game last weekend stayed on the bench, with his place being taken by Girs. Nosko enjoyed a more attacking role in central midfield with Haïk as the anchor alongside Bashilov. An interesting line-up, for sure, and one that looked decent enough in the first half.

Nosko was prominent in some early attacks down our left and sent over crosses that couldn't quite be finished off. Umarov, as is his wont, showed up quite well in the first period. Torpedo were tentative and hesitant, restricted to long range efforts from twenty five or so yards; again they had trouble, initially, in linking up play between their dangerous midfield and their forwards.

As with last weekend, Energetik took the lead around the half hour mark. Umarov, working down their right, arrowed into the box, making space for himself, and sent over a teasing, well-judged cross that eluded the visiting defence. Girs had got himself goal-side of his marker, and stabbed the ball home from four yards out. It was a well-worked goal and a heartening beginning for the side but, from there on in, things collapsed like a Jenga tower made at last orders in the pub.

Warning bells rang louder and louder as Torpedo pulled themselves together. Ramos struck the ball over from distance.  A great in-swinging free kick from skipper Khachaturyan eluded the Energetik defence and was headed just wide by the on-rushing Antilevski, with Sadovskiy struggling to cover. A goal was coming, and it did, just before the break. Nice interplay down the Energetik right saw another lofted ball floated into the box. About ten yards out, Kirill Premudrov got himself in front of a strangely listless Girs, who did nothing to intervene. He rose and looped an awkward header over the stranded Sadovskiy and into the top right hand corner. This was the first of three cheap goals that our makeshift defence threw away today.

Still, all square at half time wasn't too bad and Energetik had looked good in flashes, going forward. Sadly nothing prepared us for the grimness that lay ahead after the break.

Last Sunday's game was remarkable from an Energetik point of view, in that no-one was sent off. This brief respite was rudely shattered just a minute minutes into the second period when Yudchits, tracking back, shouldered Torpedo's Vitali Ustinov in the back as they chased a ball into the box, with the visiting player needing no further encouragement to crash to the ground. Yudchits was presumably deemed the last man (he wasn't) and having denied a clear goalscoring opportunity (dubious) and was dismissed as Energetik once again found themselves a man short. This was a penalty, but a red card...hard to see it, really. In any case, Premudrov sent Sadovskiy the wrong way to put Torpedo in front for the first time in the game, to the delight of a large travelling support scattered around the stadium.

On the hour mark Yuri Puntus replaced the tiring Dmitri Antilevski with Mikhail Afanasjev. The attacking midfielder had barely had time to break into a sweat before he finished the game as a contest after sixty five minutes. Only Svirepa will be able to explain what on earth he was trying to do, trying to reach Shkurdyuk with a pass across the face of our goal on the edge of our area, ringed with three or four men in black shirts. The pass was hopelessly skewed and found Afansjev, who gratefully charged into the box and buried it low to Sadovskiy's left at the near post. A whole week of game-planning and tactical development thrown away, casually, with the kind of bad choice / thinking that should be eliminated in schools football, by anyone aspiring to have a long career as a professional.

Energetik tried to keep going and cause problems for Torpedo but it became significantly more half hearted as the game wound down. Umarov's set pieces were really dreadful in the second half and wasted the few good positions we managed to get ourselves into. And, not content with gift wrapping two goals for the opposition, a third and final present was handed over to make the visitors' journey down the road to Zhodino go that little bit quicker.

Again Afanasjev was involved. The attacker, blocked by two Energetik defenders at the edge of the area, cheekily lobbed the ball over them and into the box, in the general direction of the on-running Nikolaevich. Standing in the way was Shkurdyuk. The big defender had a horrendous fresh-air mis-kick at Afanasjev's ball as it dropped, and Nikolevich met it with full force from six yards; Lesko, who had bizarrely replaced a visibly upset Sadovskiy, got the bulk of his torso to it, but there was too much power in the shot, which rolled over the line. All that was missing was a sad trombone accompaniment, in a quite farcical conclusion to the scoring.

Energetik's season has been a mix of great runs interspersed with terrible runs, with very little in between. This is by a distance our worst run this season. We have conceded fourteen goals in three games and put in three absolutely atrocious defensive performances on the bounce. Our current problems cannot be linked to the departures of Tweh and Yakshiboev; losing our two best attackers has nothing to do with our back players forgetting how to defend, seemingly overnight.

I do feel Vladimir needs to decide his best starting eleven and stick with it for a few games. Miroshnikov needs to come back; Mawatu into the centre of the park; Yudchits and Bakić paired up front. Young Sadovskiy in goal has had a torrid few weeks but I think we should persist with him, as I'm struggling to think of one of those fourteen goals that were his fault. I think the period of experimentation with new players has to come to an end; we need a settled team, and to stick with it for a few games regardless of results. This constant tinkering and tactical insights delivered from under a damp towel are at present making things much worse, not better.

Energetik's season is falling down a cliff, currently . We are lucky to have amassed the points total we did in the first round of games and I am sure we will find a few wins between now and October. We are not in any danger of relegation, of course, but after the BATE win and genuine hopes of pushing for a European place, just surviving doesn't really feel like much of an achievement.  Couple this rapid descent with reported fan discontent with playing in Molodechno, and the two week break called to coincide with the presidential election looks like a great relief for us. The club seems troubled and ill-at-ease, on and off the park.

Vladimir Belyavskiy will need to use these coming blank weeks, after the fixture away in Gorodeya next weekend, very wisely indeed. The promising platform that his talented young group of players built for themselves is in danger of disintegrating in an embarrassing fashion, without decisive and focused work from the coaching staff, and a re-set in the attitude on the pitch. The aspiration is straightforward; delivering on it will be much less so.     


2. The top three detach themselves

After the so-called "weekend of shocks" a couple of weekends back, and the stalemate-in-a-storm last Sunday in Grodno, this time around the top three all won and kept up the pressure on one another at the top of the table.

First into action were Neman Grodno on Saturday, with a trip to face bottom club Belshina at the Spartak stadium. As well as seeing if Neman could keep up the pressure on their rivals, the reaction of the Bobruisk backmarkers to that brutal late loss last time out at Gorodeya, was the other interesting factor at play. Belshina have needed snookers for a few weeks now, looking increasingly beleauguered on the ten point mark, already running out of games and, perhaps, belief that they can stop themselves sinking into the Pershaya Liga's peat bog.

Belshina, arguably, had the better of the first half. The closest they came was around the twenty five minute mark when "striker" Nivaldo gave the first indication of the season that he's actually a footballer. Neat interplay down the right between two or three Belshina players saw a lovely dinked ball from Rekish free the hapless Brazilian into the box. He ran onto it well, and unleashed a fizzing right foot drive that crashed back off the underside of the bar, and back into play. Nivaldo did everything right, and it was just sheer bad luck; a real let-off for Neman.

Sadly, the gulf in the fortunes of the two teams was underlined moments later. A long clearance from Neman's back line fell in front of centre-half Maksym Grek, on the right side of the home defence. Grek let the ball bounce in front of him and attempted to head it backwards- but made a dreadful hash of the whole manoeuvre. Lurking predator Gegham Kadymyan latched onto the ball and with fine technique looped the ball over a flabbergasted Kharitonovich, for the only goal of the game. The Belshina goalkeeper gave his team mate a look that would have turned him into stone, had Grek not been lying on the ground in despair. It's this kind of appalling blunder, repeated continually, that will see Belshina relegated with a few weeks to spare.

As for Neman, they got the job done despite not being at their best. There were concerning aspects of their performance for coach Igor Kovalevich. Denis Levitsky was given too much space by the Neman defence on a couple of occasions, hitting the side netting just after half time. Sergei Glebko also showed up quite well in midfield. That said, Neman could have extended their lead late in the game as Belshina tired, with Jean-Morel Poé orchestrating a couple of dangerous late attacks. Overall, Neman did well enough to win the game against a confidence-sapped and error-prone opponent, but they looked perhaps a little jaded, and looking forward to the coming break as much as Energetik. 

No such problems for the top two on Sunday, who were last to play. Firstly, Andrei Razin brought his FC Minsk side to the Borisov Arena to try and take advantage of the gremlins that had plagued BATE's electronics in their last couple of home outings, against Energetik and Slavia. FC may have got off to a perfect start, too, when Aleksey Zaleskiy's powerful drive from the edge of the area whistled just past Shcherbitsky's left hand upright. It would have been interesting to see how the game would have developed had that gone in, although I doubt it would have affected the result, materially; FC simply don't have the defence to last ninety minutes against BATE. Maksym Skavysh opened the scoring with a fine finish two minutes later, heading home from a free kick with the FC defence absent without leave; BATE led 2-0 at half time, thanks to a well-worked goal finished by Ihar Staševich, and the second half was something of a turkey-shoot. BATE ended up scoring six without reply, with a seventh ruled out for offside. FC also had veteran goalkeeper Veremko to thank for a couple of fine blocks and saves which prevented the rout reaching double figures.

To their credit, FC came to attack and striker Artem Vasilijev was very unlucky to see a beautifully struck curving effort from distance cannon back off Shcherbitsky's left hand post just after half time; the little striker also saw another shot narrowly clear the bar. But if BATE were slow to start in the second half they soon got in their stride. they were helped when Veremko's appalling attempted clearance barely cleared the penalty area; a rapidly interchange of passes saw Dmitry Baga take full advantage for the third. That was the punch in the guts for the visitors; the fourth came barely a minute later. The roof came in on FC who simply couldn't live with BATE's invention and movement off the ball in the last half hour. As I don't want this article to reach Tolstoyan length, I'll just say that the fifth goal- a gorgeous, feather light free kick from Staševich  lofted in at perfect height for Dragun to power home with a venomous header- was the goal of the game. Andrei Razin sat alone, looking terrible, in his dugout, at the end of the game. It was hard not to feel a bit sorry for him.

For Kirill Alshevsky there was a pleasing ruthlessness about BATE today and some fine individual goals and performances. The dreadful self-doubting introspection that clung to his side for a few weeks has been banished and with a display like this his side have shown that they intend to keep raising their levels in the weeks ahead. It's important not to read too much into a win over one of the league's weaker sides, but still it was a very impressive showing. For poor FC, the only consolation from such a chastening and humiliating defeat was that nearby Slutsk and Gorodeya lost this weekend as well, whilst the clubs in the automatic relegation places failed to gain any ground.

Speaking of Smolevichi, they were part of the weekend's last fixture, a tough assignment away at joint-top potash barons Shakhtyor Soligorsk. Shakhtyor walked out onto the Stroitel turf having just seen BATE's win conclude, so they knew what was required of them. In the end, they put in the kind of diligent and well-rounded performance that everyone expected to see, with Nikola Antić opening the scoring with a rising left foot drive from inside the area in the first half, after a shot from the Yak had been blocked. In the second period, the Uzbek starred, netting twice; a fine long run and shot as the Smolevichi defence fatally backed off; and the coup de gras, leading the visiting defence a fine dance along the edge of the area, parallel to goal, before pivoting and shooting home low to the goalkeeper's right. In many ways, this was a similar performance to the one Shahktyor had at home to Belshina about two months ago, only the Bobruisk club offered much more as an attacking force in that game. Smolevichi were worryingly toothless in this match and never looked like forcing their way back into contention after Antić's opener. As a result, Shahktyor stay at BATE's shoulder at the top of the table on thirty seven points, with Neman three points in hand with a game against the lowly villagers.

The weekend's games have seen two distinct three way fights emerge in the top six. The first, as we have described, is for the title; the second is for fourth place and the final 2021 Europa League spot. Dinamo Minsk, Torpedo and Vitebsk- up to sixth after their straightforward Friday night defeat of Slutsk- are the serious challengers for that place. Energetik, who were squatting in fourth for a while, have now slipped to seventh and seem set to fall further.

3. Ruhked! Slavia's Spirited comeback

After seventy five minutes of Friday's curtain raiser at the Brest Central Stadium, you'd have got long odds for anything other than a Rukh Brest win. Slavia Mozyr, returning after a week off, looked as though they were still on the training ground. They were a distant and very poor second in the game's first half, and were lucky to have conceded only Denis Grechikho's fine goal at half time. When Artem Kontsevoy netted four minutes into the second half, a repeat of Slavia's appalling 0-5 reverse in Molodechno, against Energetik, loomed ominously. Kontsevoy was getting great joy down Slavia's right and revelled in the freedom and space he was given, to cause mayhem. Slavia were further impeded when their new Serbian defensive midfielder Marko Stojanović, was booked very early in the game; the tough-tacking signing had to be on his best behaviour for the remainder of his hour-long bow in Belarusian football.

Kontsevoy's goal, and his side's second, was an excellent strike; he brushed off the attentions of Slavia's Yuri Pantya and sent a vicious right foot drive flashing across the flailing Baranovski and into the top right corner of the net, for the goal of the game.

Rukh's success in the last few weeks had been built on the almost supernatural powers displayed by Roman Stepanov in goal. The charms afforded by his once magic cloak have begun to rub off, alas. When Francis Narh turned smartly and hit a low right footed drive from about fourteen yards out, Stepanov, despite getting his full right hand to the ball, somehow let it squirm under his body, to afford the visitors an unlikely route back into the game. Even then, though, given Narh's perfunctory celebrations, it seemed like a consolation for Slavia, an impression reinforced when Nikiforenko re-established Rukh's two goal advantage with less than a quarter of an hour to go.

Alas! Up popped the lively Ghanaian again, as the game became ludicrously open, to set up young Slavia left back Vladislav Malkevich for the second. Showing great upper body strength and bustling through a couple of challenges, Narh laid off a perfect diagonal cross ball for the defender to run onto and send a left foot drive whistling past Stepanov for the second, low down to the goalkeeper's right. That counter really seemed to affect Rukh and from then on it became a battle between their collapsing game management and how quickly time passed. Sadly for the home fans, time didn't pass quick enough, even allowing for the sending off of Slavia's Evgeny Barsukov, for a rough, cynical challenge on Artem Petrenko.

However, the last major disciplinary action of the game for the lantern-jowled beanpole referee Denis Shcherbakov took place in the Rukh penalty box. With hardly anytime left Malkevich gathered pace, having received the ball at the edge of the box and was felled by a genuinely cretinous challenge from Kontsevoy. Maksym Slyusar stepped up to convert the penalty and earn Slavia the unlikeliest of points.

This was a great way for the neutral to start the weekend- an incident packed six goal draw with red cards and spectacular goals between two sides who probably need another season of development to reach their full potential.  Simple game management should have seen Rukh win this 3-1, but they threw the points away through an extraordinary mixture of complacency and naiveté. They will learn, however, and it is easy to forget that it is their first season at this level.

Slavia, meanwhile, are the division's most unpredictable, Jekyll-and-Hyde XI. At their best they can look devastating, whilst at their worst they look more hopeless than Belshina; their near-unique ability to be both sides in the same game certainly keeps their noisy fan base guessing. In this game they were much more bad than good, and relied on their greater experience, to take advantage of a less streetwise opponent. It’s always foolish to underestimate Slavia even when you seemingly have your boot on their throat.

They are a side still in the making, but with youngsters like Malkevich and Stojanović, solid local pros like Zhuk and Barsukov, alongside genuine stars like Francis Narh, it will be really interesting to see how the oilmen develop in the next twelve months. They have been bumping around the bottom half of the table for too long, and with the owners investing money in a fair few new faces recently, they should have an ambition to break into the top seven, and cut out the poor parts of their game, in the remainder of the season.

Coach Mikhail Martinovich bizarrely explained away their terrible first half showing by stating that his side were "too kind" to their opponent; Aleksandr Sednev was I think still too puce with rage to offer much by way of a coherent postscript. I suspect kindness will be in short supply in Rukh's next few training sessions.

4. A quiet return for Dinamo Brest  

 "Most of all, I wish them all good health", reflected Isloch coach Vitaly Zhukovsky, commenting in the wake of his side's 2-0 victory over Dinamo Brest, in their first competitive game after being blighted by coronavirus.

Whatever your club affiliation, it's great to see Dinamo back and able to fulfil fixtures again, even if their performance was some way short of pre-corona levels, as was only to be expected. Isloch, who themselves had been on a concerningly poor run of defeats against some of the league's weaker sides, were clearly better on the day, and were able to take advantage of greater match fitness, as the game on Saturday wore on.

Not that Dinamo were embarrassed. They moved the ball nicely in the opening stages of a blustery and overcast afternoon at the Traktor. Diallo, on his Dinamo debut, sent in a couple of challenging crosses and was inches away from connecting with one himself; Pavel Sedko sent a very good effort flashing narrowly past the top right hand corner of the goal, with Hatkevich struggling to cover. But these faint sallies from an unfamiliar and experimental line up were about as good as it got from Dinamo.

On the half hour mark, as the rain poured down, Nikolai Yanush was clever to find space in between Kiki and Oleg Veretilo, rising high to nod Dmitri Komarovski's corner from the left past Sergei Ignatovich for the opener. Isloch may have added one more before the break but for sharp defending and goalkeeping, but were not to be denied further; Yanush added his second from about twenty eight yards, ten minutes into the second half, with a remarkable low drive that crashed in off the right hand post. Kiki remonstrated furiously with Veretilo and Sergei Krivets, who between them had allowed the big Isloch striker the time and space to line up his decisive piledriver, that left poor Ignatovich with little hope of stopping it.

There are interesting debates to come with Dinamo; how will the new signings settle in, will they be back to some sort of recognisable form for the Champions' league qualifying rounds in the second part of August, how quickly will the new faces adapt to the remnants of the old championship winning team, how quickly will Sergei Kovalchuk be able to manage a team that has just suffered a dreadful collective trauma into the type of form that they are capable of.  These are questions for another day, though. For now, it's just great to see them back and competing again.



Jon Blackwood
Twitter: @DreadlocksGleb