PICTURE: The opening goal from the penalty spot almost immediately following the evening kickoff between visiting FC Vorkuta and Real Mississauga at Huron Park in Mississauga on Saturday night, was scored by FC Vorkuta captain Liubomyr Halchuk. The goal led to the 7-1 victory and the First Division title for Vorkuta, a fitting achievement for the now 37 year old Ukrainian-born defender with almost 200 professional appearances in Europe, more that 100 of which was for FC Lviv of the highly rated Ukrainian Premier League. Halchuk is today surely one of the most experienced defenders playing in Canadian soccer and is a big reason for the continuing success of Vorkuta in the Canadian Soccer League.
Unbeaten FC Vorkuta emphasized its season-long superiority with a 7-1 victory over Real Mississauga Saturday night and in doing so won the Canadian Soccer League First Division title. It was the 14th regular season win for the current CSL champions, and with three draws it leaves one game to be played by Vorkuta before the post-season championship playoffs begin in October. In one other First Division match on Saturday, SC Waterloo nipped FC Ukraine United 1-0, scoring in the closing minutes of a hard-fought contest.
Vorkuta lost no time in finding the Real Mississauga net at the Huron Park ground, scoring from the penalty spot in the first minute of play following a foul in the box by Mississauga defender Vadim Gozbunov on Vorkuta’s Mykola Temniuk. Vorkuta captain Liubomyr Halchuk scored from the spot. Serhii Melnyk made it 2-0 for Vorkuta, scoring his first goal of the season for the visitors at 15 minutes, a powerful low strike which quickly found the corner of the net. Temniuk added a third minutes later, his 17th goal of the season after taking a pass from Vadym Gostiev and at the 32nd minute mark Volodymyr Bidlovskyy drove a perfect curling free kick over the wall to increase the lead to 4-0.Temniuk scored goal number 18 on the season from the penalty spot following a hand ball offence by Real Mississauga’s Vadim Gozbunov for a 5-0 score at 41 minutes, the score at the break.
A third penalty kick in the game resulted in Real Mississauga’s only goal, the penalty taken by Arlind Ferhati after Valerii Haidarzhi of Vorkuta drew the referee’s whistle for a foul in the box. Iaroslav Solonynko’s one touch volley off a cross by Bidlovskyy made it 6-1 and the final goal came at 65 minutes when Bidlovskyy took a pass from Sergei Ivliev to find the corner, a 7-1 result in favour of Vorkuta at the final whistle.
Vorkuta wins the First Division with a 14-0-3 WLT for 45 points with one regular season game to be played, while Real Mississauga are at 2-11-1 for 7 points in ninth position in the table and four games remaining in the regular season schedule.
Defender Vladimir Zelenbaba struck the winner at 88 minutes for SC Waterloo in a hard fought encounter against visiting FC Ukraine United at RIM Park, to lift Waterloo into third position in the standings with a 9-7-1 for 28 points. Ukraine United has an 8-6-2 record for 26 points and fifth in the table. The top four teams at the completion of the regular season have home ground advantage in the post-season playoffs.
Midfielder Maksym Rohovskyi of Ukraine United was shown the red card by referee Javier Prior for a second half send-off.
There was one game in the Second Division Saturday, CSC Mississauga B defeated FC Vorkuta B, 4-0
REMAINING FIRST DIVISION GAME THIS WEEKEND:
Sunday, Sept. 22 Birchmount Stadium 8 pm Scarborough SC vs Serbian White Eagles
Tuesday, Sept. 24 Esther Shiner Stadium 9 pm Real Mississauga vs Hamilton City
UPCOMING SECOND DIVISION GAMES
Wednesday, Sept. 25 Iceland Field 9 pm Serbian White Eagles B vs Hamilton City B
Wednesday, Sept. 25 Ontario Soccer Centre 9 pm Kingsman B vs FC Vorkuta B
Wednesday, Sept. 25 Cardinal Newman 9 pm Brantford Galaxy B vs CSC Mississauga B
