March 12, 2023
The Women’s Super Cup is traditionally the opening game of the new season in Belarus and is intended to be played between the League champions and the winner of the Belarus Cup. Since being formed in 2020, Dinamo BGU have not lost a single match to Belarus opposition and so have won the league and cup in the past three season. Therefore, the Super Cup has become a match between them and the Cup runners-up, which has been FK Minsk for the past three years.
The gap between Dinamo and FK Minsk has been narrowing over the last three seasons. In 2022, after a comfortable win in the Super Cup, Dinamo were also victorious in the Cup Final, albeit only on penalties after a 0-0 draw after extra-time. In the first two league encounters between the two sides Dinamo had a 3-2 home win early in the season, followed by a 1-1 draw at Minsk’s stadium. With three games of the season to go, a win for Minsk in third and final league meeting of the season would have seen them overtake Dinamo at the top of the table and be in pole position to in the league. For most of the game Minsk looked on course to do so, leading 1-0. However, two goals in the last 10 minutes turned the game around for Dinamo to clinch a 2-1 win, and they went on to secure the league title again.
Going into today’s game, both sides looked weaker on paper than last season. FK Minsk hopes of overhauling Dinamo this season suffered a huge set-back when the outstandingly talented 19-year-old Anastasia Pobegaylo signed for Danish side Fortuna Hjerring during the winter. In addition, two of their Russians, keeper Viktoria Nosenko and defender Elvira Ziyastinova have returned home, to Lokomotiva Moskva and Ryazan respectively, whilst two other foreigners, Montenegrin midfielder Darija Djukic and Burkina Faso striker Salimata Simpore also appear to be no longer with the club.
As replacements, FK Minsk have signed two new Russians, keeper Alena Gryaznova from Zenit St Petersburg and midfielder Marina Kiskonen from CSKA Moskva, who are the only players aged over 25 in the Minsk squad, apart from fellow Russian Yana Khotyreva.
Ex-Zorka midfielder Yana Benekevich has been signed from Russian side Ryazan whilst Minsk have raided Zorka for three more signings, defender Kristina Kiyanka ( who scored 15 times last season ), goal-keeper Kamilla Butkevich and midfielder Nadezhda Voskobovich.
Dinamo have also been weakened, with the departure of all of their African contingent. Cameroonians Collett Ndzana and Claudia Dabda, South African Ester Ramalepe, all defenders, and Ivorian midfielder Nadege Cisse have all left Dinamo upon the expiration of their contracts.
The signings made so far by Dinamo are just defender Daria Manyukova and midfielder Zarina Kapustina from Dnepr Mogilev and Ukrainian midfielder Alina Skydan from Ryazan. Tatiana Petrusevich is not a new signing, rather she was previously Tatiana Markushevskaya !
The Super Cup was being played at Dinamo’s Juni stadium and entrance was free. It was snowing quite heavily at the 12.00 local time kick-off, and the temperature was minus one. Minsk were playing in a 1960s retro style all red kit with huge white numbers on the back, Dinamo were in their familiar all blue. The referee for the game was Olga Blotskaya, formally known as Olga Tereshko.
With the poor conditions there was very little to write about early on but things started to look up as the snow ceased after about 35 minutes, and the first decent shot on target produced a goal in the 42nd minute. Novikova’s clearing header only got as far as Pilipenko on the edge of the Minsk penalty area, and after taking one touch for control, the experienced play-maker picked her spot and sent the ball into the bottom corner despite Gryaznova’s despairing dive. At half-time it was 1-0 to Dinamo.
Chances remained few and far between in the second half, but Dinamo had a great opportunity to double their lead in the 69th minute after Novikova pulled back Dudko by the arm to send the former Neman coach tumbling to the floor. Shlapakova stepped up to take the spot-kick but her side-footed attempt to the keeper’s right was matched by a diving stop, and Gryaznova did even better to save bravely at Shlapakova’s feet for the rebound.
FK Minsk huffed and puffed in search of an equalizer, but Dinamo keeper Ulasevich was untroubled. With 90 minutes played, Dudko nearly settled the tie for Dinamo, but her diving header to a cross played just behind her slid a yard wide.
With more than the 4 indicated additional minutes played and with Dinamo coach Yuri Maleev furiously looking at his stop-watch, Minsk won as corner when a very optimistic shot took a deflection. Dinamo keeper Ulasevich missed with her attempted punch to clear the corner and the ball struck the unsighted Kubichnaya in the face and rolled in the net for a fluke own goal equalizer.
There wasn’t time for the match to restart, and with the scores level at 1-1 at the end of 90 minutes the game moved straight to the penalty shoot-out rather than play 30 minutes extra-time.
The unfortunate Kubichnaya then saw her penalty saved, but Minsk failed to take advantage as Khotyreva saw her attempt also saved. Pilipenko confidently became the first to score from the spot then Ulasevich saved Kiskonen’s attempt. However, the Dinamo keeper was adjudged to have been off her line so the kick was ordered to be taken, and although Kiskonen went to the opposite side, her second attempt was saved again.
The next two sets of penalties were successful leaving Daria Stezhko with the opportunity to win the Super Cup for Dinamo with a 4-2 winning margin in the shoot-out. Dramatically she blazed the ball over but the referee had spotted Gryazova had left her line too soon, so another re-take was required ! This time Stezhko kept her cool to place her second attempt into the top corner and win the Super Cup for Dinamo.
For the second time running, Minsk had lost a cup-tie against Dinamo by way of a penalty shoot-out ( one Super Cup and one Belarus Cup ). However, they never looked like scoring from open play and created next to nothing. On this evidence Dinamo are likely to continue their dominance of the Belarus Women’s Premier League in 2023.
Highlights : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0ps6WL9CPQ&t=328s
Dinamo BGU Minsk : Ulasevich – Slesarchik, Sitnikova, Kubichnaya, Manyukova ( Popova ) – Shuppo ( Dudko ), Pilipenko, Petrusevich ( Stezhko ), Kapustina ( Skydan ) – Shlapakova, Valyuk
FK Minsk : Gryaznova – Bogdan, Novikova, Kiyanka, Asaula ( Krasikova ) – Khotyreva, Kiskonen, Bysik ( Stankevich ), Voskobovich ( Benkevich ) – Surovtseva ( Zubko ) , Pinchuk
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