Defender Vanche Shikov and his team Volyn opened the 15th round of the Ukrainian league season with a surprising 2:0 win over Shakhtar Donetsk.

Shakhtar Donetsk has dominated Ukrainian football in recent years, having won four consecutive league titles and seven of the last nine league trophies overall.  This season, although still possessing the best goal difference, Shakhtar has not been as dominant with Metalist holding down first place and third placed Dnipro trailing second placed Shakhtar by just two points.  Dnipro also has two games in hand.

Last season, Shakhtar only suffered one loss in league play from the 30 possible games.  This season, after Friday’s loss against Volyn, Shakhtar has already lost three league games in just 15 matches.

Macedonian international Vanche Shikov, who captains Volyn, started in his usual right CB position and played all 90 minutes.  Shikov was involved in the action that led to the second Volyn goal in the 69th minute.  He took a powerful free kick from around 25 meters that first struck the Shakhtar wall, then hit the chest of Shakhtar midfielder Fred, before the ball fell perfectly to Redvan Memeshev who calmly sent his shot to the back of the net.  Earlier in the 24th minute, Volyn scored their first goal after Memeshev’s shot from inside the area hit the crossbar, but the ball then hit the back of the Shakhtar keeper for an unfortunate own goal.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=w-GBKVXMFqA

The win was Volyn’s fourth triumph of the current campaign, all of them coming at home.  On the road meanwhile, from eight games thus far, Volyn has yet to win as they have compiled four draws and four losses.  Volyn, however, will not have much time to celebrate their win over Shakhtar as their next opponent is another Ukrainian powerhouse in Dynamo Kyiv.