0:0? That`s not our style!

None of the games of the first group stage of Valentin Granatkin Memorial–2015 were finished with 0-0!

Still, we need to admit that we heard the phrase «at least one scored ball» quite often. The most popular score was 1:0 – six battles (1/3 of all finished matches) resulted that way. Score 2:0 was witnessed for 5 times, 2:1 – twice (both at SC «Zenit»), and the scores 1:1, 2:2, 3:1, 4:2 и 5:0 were seen only once.

Those who visited the games of «F» group were awarded with the wild and dynamic football. Teams of Azerbaijan, Japan and the second team of Russia scored 11 balls (average – 3.67 each game), moreover each of the teams already played two games, scored no less than three balls. Perhaps, we could suppose that in prior, as the second Russian team is presented by football players who are one year younger than the rest of the participants.

Sharp attacks became a slogan of «B» group (10 scored balls); with all the neighboring Belarus, Latvia and Estonia had a luck to be gathered there. However, the latter failed to contribute to that at all – for 2 matches the team have missed 7 (!) goals with not a single goal to answer back. It was the game Latvia – Estonia where the biggest win of the tournament was recorded – 5:0. By the way, at that very game we had the one and only (we hope not the last) hat trick of Valentin Granatkin Memorial-2015. The author is 17-year-old Verners Zalaks of BFC «Baugafpils». It took 49 minutes (19, 65, 68) to accomplish his deed. Quite interesting, that aggressive and pushy Zalaks was about to continue his goal mission, but after 30 seconds after the third goal the head coach of Latvia national team Babicevs had… substituted the forward.

That is obvious, that now Latvia team is the most effective team of Valentin Granatkin Memorial-2015. They have six goas to be scored; the next one is Azerbaijan with five goals, Russia and Belarus with four scored balls. Sergey Kiryakov`s Russian national team wins with no goals sensations, but confident and stabile – Moldova and Lithuania were defeated with a scores 2:0. Moreover, only two teams out of 18 – Russia and Slovenia – kept their goals safe during the first group stage. Moreover, four teams – Moscow, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Estonia – failed to score a single ball to the opponent’s goal.