Belgian "Bruges" will long remember their visits to Ukraine this year. After a slap from Donetsk "Shakhtar" in August, Trond Sollied's team was beaten in fine style in Dnipropetrovsk by "Dnipro" with a score of 3:2.
In this match, spectators witnessed open football, where both teams practically forgot about defense, setting as their main goal to strike the opponents' goal. What is gratifying is that such football could not fail to please the spectators, although it looked somewhat adventurous. However, winners are not judged.
The five goals that flew into the nets of both teams are far from the limit of the score that could have been displayed on the scoreboard at the end of the game. Only one Venhlynskyi in this match twice went one-on-one with the goalkeeper and once more should have scored into Butina's goal. Moreover, we are not counting the two goals scored by the Dnipropetrovsk forward.
The score in this game was opened by the hosts. In the 17th minute a pass followed into the penalty area for Venhlynskyi to run onto, but the forward was beaten to it by a "Bruges" defender, who headed the ball back to the goalkeeper, however, did so clumsily, and Oleh, intercepting the pass with a shot on the volley, sent the leather ball into the guests' goal – 1:0.
True, before this moment the main referee of the match should have awarded an 11-meter kick against "Bruges" after an obvious foul against Radchenko, but he took pity on the guests.
The vice-champions of Belgium equalized the score in the 37th minute. After a fire in "Dnipro's" goalkeeper's area, the most agile turned out to be Nastya Chekh, who, freeing himself from Rusol's marking and from close range fired at Kernozenko's goal, restoring parity.
In the last eight minutes of the first half, the players of both teams upset the goalkeepers twice more. The first to do so were Sollied's charges. In the 44th minute Verheyen's shot hit the crossbar of "Dnipro's" goal, and the first to the rebound was Balaban, who with a one-touch shot put his team ahead. But the guests were able to rejoice over the scored goal for only about 30 seconds. In the last minute of the first part of the duel, with a beautiful shot from afar, Rykun forced Batina to capitulate – 2:2.
After the break, both teams started not too briskly and played more cautiously in defense. The first to conduct reconnaissance in force was the same Venhlynskyi, who sent the ball over the goal in a struggle with a defender.
In the 62nd minute, Venhlynskyi, after a mistake by the central defender, came out for another meeting with the "Bruges" goalkeeper, but shot not cunningly and moreover straight at the center, and the goalkeeper turned this ball into a corner. However, this evening was precisely Venhlynskyi's day. After taking the set piece, Oleh shot from an acute angle into the far top corner and made the score 3:2. As it later turned out, this ball became the winning one in this game and brought "Dnipro" important three points in the first match of the group tournament of the UEFA Cup. Next, Kucherskyi's team awaits a visit to Holland, where on the fourth of November it will meet "Utrecht".
Group C
"Dnipro" - "Bruges" - 3:2 Goals: Venhlynskyi 17, 62, Rykun 45, Chekh 37, Balaban 44 "Dnipro": Kernozenko, Yezerskyi, Radchenko, Rusol, Hrytsai, Shelayev, Mykhailenko, Rykun, Nazarenko (Semochko 64), Kostyshyn, Venhlynskyi (Melashchenko 88) "Bruges": Butina, Simons, van der Heyden, Clement, Verheyen, Englebert, Chekh (Stoica 79), Balaban, Gvozdenović (Lange 46), Cornelis, Martens (Victor 70).