Vladimir had changes forced upon him. Bakić, far from being let off after his unjust dismissal against Slavia, was banned for two games, whilst Yakshiboev irritatingly missed another game owing to the yellow cards continuing to mount up. As a result, Yudchits returned to the centre-forward role partnering Junior Atemeng. Girs and Mawatu functioned as wing-backs in an otherwise unchanged line up.
Psychedelic Refereeing
This was a strange game in the first half and from the off it was very clear that the referee intended to have a big part in the match. Energetik started quite brightly, and spent more time than i expected in the tentative and hesitant home side's half. With just seven minutes on the clock, Aleksandr Svirepa was booked for what seemed a very innocuous incident. An attack of ours had broken down and home goalkeeper Chihkan had the ball safely in his grasp. He ran out of his box to release the ball quickly, with both sets of players retreating to take up their positions. There was an accidental collision between Chihkan and Svirepa. The referee decided that Svirepa had done a Nat Lofthouse on the goalkeeper, for no apparent reason, and flashed the yellow card. Looking back on the replay, the goalkeeper, oddly, seems to have run into Svirepa deliberately. This strange passage of play was to have dire consequences fifteen minutes or so later.
BATE were beginning to settle into the game a little, around the twenty minute mark. A series of passes across our retreating defence saw Drahun feed Nemanja Milić, shoulder to shoulder with Svirepa. Running out of space, the Serb forward lashed the ball with his left foot across Svirepa, striking his left forearm. The referee whistled immediately for an incredibly harsh penalty award. And, as Svirepa had already been booked, nonsensically, he was dismissed for a handball offence in the penalty box. As a penalty award this was right up there with the notorious Pat van den Hauwe penalty in the Wales v Scotland world cup qualifier in autumn 1985. Missing our recognised strikeforce, and reduced to ten men with seventy minutes of a game against the league leaders to play; things looked very grim for us at that point.
Stanislav Drahun stepped up to take the spot kick. The experienced international hit the ball right down the middle as Sadovskiy dropped away to his right. But a lack of power from both men was critical. Dragun didn't hit the penalty hard enough; Sadovskiy wasn't fully committed to his dive. He threw up his black-gloved left palm and acrobatically turned the ball over the bar, just as his trajectory threatened to take his body out of the way. A quite remarkable, and unusual, penalty save. Still goalless, and the corner came to nothing. This was some kind of justice for what was an absurd penalty award in the first place.
The penalty save and the re-organisation seemed to galvanise our team further and BATE needed to pick up again quickly and out the miss behind them. A goal was coming- at the other end.
Half way through the first half an untidy tangle between Alexei Nosko and Drahun saw the referee award a direct free kick to Energetik. The ball was about thirty five yards from goal and BATE, not expecting a direct ht from that distance, didn't really organise a wall, instead expecting a ball floated into the box or played down one of the wings. Shahkboz Umarov had a completely different idea. He put his head down and after a short run up put the laces of his right boot through the ball, hitting it with murderous power. Robert Carlos-style, there was a beautiful slight curve on it as it bent just inside the left hand post. Chihkan, tumbling like an upset spider plant across his goal, was beaten comprehensively. Yudchits lashed the rebound into the roof of the net gleefully as the whole team- Sadovskiy included, buried Umarov in astonished congratulations. This was a goal of the season contender, and it shook the home team profoundly.
Meantime some re-organisation was needed; the luckless Atemeng made way fr the recovered Haïk, who slotted into to shore up the midfield, as Nosko dropped a bit further back. BATE had a dangerous sally involving Milić, Baga and Drahun, but the ball was lost and fell to Sadovskiy at a crucial moment.
BATE almost suffered double jeopardy five minutes later. Yudchits was fouled clumsily at the edge of their area, and acute angle to the right of Chihkan's goal. This time the home team took our little Uzbek much more seriously. Chihkan spent ages calibrating his wall, but to no avail. Again with a fully committed run up, Umarov hit a fizzing low drive that was difficult to see in real time; the ball cannoned off the base of Chihkan's left post and almost straight back to him. the chance was lost, but it was another sign that, even down to ten men, we were very much in the game.
BATE pressured us half-heartedly. Bojan Nastić shot over the bar from the edge of the area. the same player was involved in our biggest let-off, just before half time. a few neat passes saw him burst into our area on the left, with Girs on his shoulder this time. The wing back, concerned at Nastić finding space for himself, brought him down- clearly; there was a touch on the shoulder and something of a trip. It was a much clearer penalty than the first award. The referee, however, warming to his self-appointed role as a contrarian, decided that Nastić had imagined the whole thing, and booked him for simulation. This was a lucky escape for us; nine times out of ten, a penalty would have been awarded. perhaps the referee was reflecting guiltily on his earlier decision.
They Shall Not Pass
At half time it was pretty clear that the next period, with BATE refreshed and re-organised, would be attritional. I was really pleased with the way that the players had refused to buckle in the opening period and had continued to create opportunities despite the numerical disadvantage. The whole team had worked so hard to preserve our fragile lead.
I'll be candid; the second half was borderline unwatchable in places. It was a pitiless, horrendous siege where the home team created enough good chances to win their next five games, let alone this one. The tension in the game was quite extraordinary, and having watched the highlights a few times today, I still have no idea how BATE failed to take any of their chances. We have conceded at the last gasp a few times this season and the longer the half went on, the bigger the worry that a late slip might snatch the win away from us. It was a mixture of poor finishing, anxiety from the opposition, good goalkeeping, brave defending, luck and team-work that underpinned our win.
To be honest I don't see the point in writing a 6,000 word mini-thesis on all the chances BATE missed in the second half, but I will mention a few examples. The pressure was intense from the off after the re-start, and BATE ensured that we had little respite. Two minutes after the re-start, a dipping, nasty outswinging cross from Staševich was half-fumbled, half-parried by Sadovskiy at the edge of the six yard box, and the ball was hacked clear by Nosko.
Another move began, and again Staševich was the choirmaster; a delightful weighted ball played in Drahun, who had lost his marker, Haïk. In plenty of space, Drahun tried to cut the ball back from the touchline, and hit Sadovskiy's left hand post. The ball lobbed gently to an off-balance Milić (I think), in the middle of the goal, and with our defence pressing he struck an underhit, spooned shot which was creeping into the roof of the net, agonisingly slowly. Sadovskiy recovered to tip the ball over at full stretch.
From the resulting Staševich corner, the ball was played deep to the back post where Dmitry Baga, in plenty of space, hit a dipping volley across the face of goal. The slightest touch from anyone and the ball would have been in. But it hissed across the area and out, harmlessly. From a Nedaychik corner, Drahun, pressuring Miroshnikov, got a good header n it, but it floated just beyond the right hand post. Another minute, another Staševich corner, this time Dmitry Baga connected well with his forehead, and Sadovskiy saved brilliantly under his bar, at full stretch, turning the ball over and at the same time landing awkwardly, necessitating treatment.
The siege continued and it took a toll on some of our players. Tweh, exhausted, was withdrawn for the young Brazilian Dias, the first glimpse we've had of the forward in first team action this season. Umarov, as is now traditional, made way for Sovpel, having made such an impact on the first half.
The relentless assault continued. BATE had already created five really good chances in the first quarter hour of the second half, and a sixth came when Staševich lost Girs at the edge of the area. Again he gently lifted the ball, diagonally at head height, across the box. Nastić rose at the far post and again connected well, but the ball cratered the side netting harmlessly. Sadovskiy, perhaps showing the intensity that was running through our players, berated Girs for failing to block Staševich for a full thirty seconds after the ball went into touch. The young goalkeeper is normally quite laid back, and I've never seen him quite so furious.
The second half reminded me a little of watching Michael O'Neill's Northern Ireland team, having sneaked an early goal against a Holland or a Germany in a qualifying match, and then relying on Mikey McGovern and some bloke from Fleetwood Town to keep the opposition out. We had a rare break half way through the second half, having been completely unable to stop BATE totally dominating at our end of the pitch. Some messy interplay involving Haïk, Mawatu and Dias saw the ball fall to Girs, gathering pace to the left of Chihkan's goal. From the edge of the penalty area he hit a powerful low right footed half volley that the startled goalkeeper parried with three of our forwards lurking. Unfortunately, the rebound fell to a BATE defender, and the chance fell away. Dias didn't have much to do in the half, other than try to hold the ball up, but the wee man is lightning quick.
BATE's monotonous and increasingly desperate attempts to score continued. We were fortunate that they seemed intent on walking the ball into the net, and always looked to pass sideways instead of more directly- a sure sign of a team lacking in confidence, or perhaps lacking inspiration. BATE began to look tired, jaded and increasingly fed up with their lot.
One of the Filipović's hit wide of Sadovskiy's left hand post from the edge of the area. Staševich, tired of his promptings and subtle passings being spurned, took matters into his own hands, driving into our area from the right and, from a tight angle, hitting a blurringly quick rising drive just over the bar with Sadovskiy struggling to cover. The minutes began to drop away. BATE began to doubt themselves even more. Dias fell over on the half way line, and won a free kick. Tick-tock.
Another Stašević corner, another header over from Drahun. Tock-tick. Time moved with all the rapidity of a drunk boar trying to find his way out of a locked barn. A final desperate corner with seconds left. Again a deadly, perfect set piece snaking viciously across our six yard box. Filipović, perhaps unsighted by Nekhajchik just in front of him, rose and met it perfectly. His angles were wrong though, and the ball flashed wide. Immediately, the final whistle peeped and the players slumped to the ground; ours exhausted, BATE's in despair. The Energetik bench exploded in scarcely believing celebrations and in time, our players were able to join in once the enormity of what they had achieved had begun to sink in. Nosko had enough strength to lift an exhausted Sadovskiy from his goal line; two key performers for us in the game, still battling for one another after the final whistle- a nice thing to see.
We Still Can Dream
I've been watching football for thirty years now and rarely have I been so proud of a team that I follow as I was at the final whistle on Saturday. What heart. What courage. What team-work. We've done a double over a team that is estimated to be thirty-three times more valuable than ours, and frustrated a team full of internationals and experienced campaigners on their own midden. BATE were booed off by their supporters, and manager Kiril Alshevsky once again finds his regime in deep crisis.
Happily, his woes are the source of our delight. Saturday was all about the Students from Energetik, and showing on the biggest stage in Belarusian football what we are capable of. This result leaves us as one of four teams at the top of the table, separated by just a point. Days like this make us hope for tangible rewards at the end of this exciting league season. After the home defeat by Belshina Bobruisk it looked like our top three pretensions were well and truly shattered. This victory shows that we still have every right to dream.
Well done to everyone involved on Saturday- Vladimir, the White Caps, the players. What a day, what a performance, what a result.
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| Energetik's guys celebrate doing the double over BATE after the final whistle (loads of photos can be found on Energetik's VK page) |
Twitter: @jonblackwood
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