Match Preview: Dynamo U-21 vs. Sochi U-21: Where to Watch, News, and All About the Opponent

You can follow the progress of the match in the match center on our website, as well as on the club’s social networks VKontakte and Telegram.

The live video broadcast of the game can be viewed on the official Youtube channel of the Academy of Dynamo Football Club - via this link.

The meeting starts at 11:00 Moscow time.

As always, our girls are waiting for the support of Dynamo fans at the stadium. All home matches of the Dynamo youth team this season are held at the training base in Novogorsk. How to get to VTB UTB “Novogorsk-Dynamo” and support the Dynamo girls can be found here.

Entry to the match with Sochi will be free.

You can always view the full schedule of home and away matches of the Dynamo youth team in the 2024 season here.

Our team had to play the first match with Sochi on the road - for the first time in its history, our team went to the Black Sea coast. Few doubted that from there Mikhail Kobyakov's charges would bring a good mood, which a victory over the outsider of Group D would provide them with.

It’s not that this was some kind of difficult mission, however, the expected defeat of the opponent was not achieved. Unlike their predecessors, who previously played with the Sochi youth team. So, another Moscow team, ZhFK Strogino, scored three unanswered goals against the team, but the St. Petersburg Zenit did not stand on ceremony and gave the newcomers of the Youth League a lesson in skill - 10:0!

Our girls did not organize exhibition performances, instead they scored two goals in the first half and calmly brought the matter to a confident victory after the break. Svetlana Eliseeva and Polina Kolesnikova scored goals for Dynamo, assisted by Taisiya Razvorotneva and Kristina Yakovenko. If for Polina and Christina this is not the first effective action for the blue and white, then for Sveta and Taisiya it is the first points according to the “goal + pass” system for our club. Congratulations! You can watch Svetlana Eliseeva’s first goal and, accordingly, Taisia Razvorotneva’s assist for her in our Telegram channel via this link and in other social networks of the club.

— We started the game quite successfully. The first half was basically under our control, the girls executed their setup well and had good control of the ball, creating quite a few sharp approaches to the opponent’s goal. Unfortunately, we couldn’t realize our chances for a long time. However, then they scored two goals and confidently brought the half to an end.

In the second half, they decided to make four substitutions at once: firstly, the game was under control, and, secondly, they wanted more girls to get match practice. After the break, we probably calmed down too early and also didn’t make several good chances, so the second half turned out to be of less quality than the first. Nevertheless, we confidently brought the meeting to victory,” — head coach of the youth “Dynamo” Mikhail Kobyakov spoke about his team’s away victory.

The heroine of the meeting and the author of the second goal for the blue and white midfielder Polina Kolesnikova shared her thoughts about why in the second half neither she nor her teammates managed to score even more goals:

— In principle, the game turned out to be good, the girls gave their all on the field. The opponents sank very low and kept a tight defense, and in the first minutes it was difficult to get used to this. We tried, we pumped it up, there were many moments, but the implementation still needs to be improved.

We managed to score two goals in the first half, this cheered everyone up, we ended the first half with emotions. We may have gone into the second half with the wrong mindset, but by and large the game was good. The opponent was strong in terms of martial arts and gave us resistance. We had our moments, but again we had problems finishing.

Thus, Dynamo, after the 3rd round, continues to occupy second place in Group D, which gives the right to continue the fight for Youth League medals in the next stage. To book this opportunity, the blue and white need to score four points in the remaining three matches. This is quite a feasible task for our girls, who this year intend to get on the nerves of not only their fans, but also the strongest teams in the league.

The rival of the white-and-blues in the 4th round is the same as in the 3rd – the youth team of WFC "Sochi". Like WFC "Dynamo", the Sochi club appeared quite recently – in 2023, and played its first official match in history in June last year, when it debuted in the Krasnodar Krai Cup.

Accordingly, in the 2024 season, the Sochi team debuted again – this time in the Youth League. Here, the club from the south of Russia is also repeating the path of "Dynamo", as the white-and-blues also started with the youth team, and then stepped into the Super League. However, unlike "Dynamo", "Sochi" still feels extremely uncomfortable even at the youth level: in the very first match, they were defeated in Saint Petersburg by the vice-champion "Zenit" with a score of 0:10 (!), and in the 2nd round, they lost heavily at home to "Strogino" – 0:3… It is not yet very clear whether we can talk about any progress of the Sochi team, considering that in the home game against "Dynamo" a week ago, they lost to the white-and-blues just 0:2.

The youth team of "Sochi" is still headed by 32-year-old Dmitry Kosenko, who has been working with the team since its creation.

Despite being debutants, the Sochi club's squad already includes players associated with "Dynamo": these are forward Alexandra Shevchenko (18 matches, 1 goal, and 1 assist for the youth team of the white-and-blues in the 2023 season) and midfielder Annabelle Kipasa Maniki, who played for "Dynamo" teams of different ages. Both of them played in the first game in Sochi: Annabelle was substituted at the 26th minute, Alexandra played the entire match but did not mark any productive actions.

The Sochi match, which took place on May 5th, also became the first in the history of the confrontation between the two clubs: as already mentioned, it ended with a confident victory for "Dynamo" (2:0) thanks to goals from Svetlana Eliseeva and Polina Kolesnikova.

The second historical confrontation between the two clubs in the Youth League, which will now take place in Novogorsk, will be officiated by the referee team led by Alexandra Ponomareva, assisted by linesmen Ksenia Turbabina (both from Moscow) and Anastasia Matveeva (Tambov).

Previously, Ponomareva has already officiated "Dynamo" matches: in the Youth League – against "Yenisey" (3:0) and "Krylia Sovetov" (2:0); in the Super League – twice against "Ryazan-VDV" (5:0 and 2:0), as well as against "Zenit" (0:5) and "Rostov" (1:0); in the Russian Cup – in the 1/8 finals against WFC CSKA (1:4).

The balance of victories and defeats for "Dynamo" under the refereeing of Ponomareva: 7 matches – 5 wins, 2 losses, goal difference 14-9.