The champion almost collapsed, the "men" saddled the "wolves", LNZ finally broke through.

The season of the Ukrainian Premier League is gradually gaining momentum, but we have to get used to the fact that the weekend before the Independence Day of Ukraine is now a cup, so the teams in the third round have actually raised the bar under their own performances at the start of the season. Certain trends are already visible, and if they are positive for anyone, a certain number of teams have almost two weeks to restart themselves for the continuation of the championship. 3rd round 14.08.2026 18:00 3rd round 15.08.2026 13:00 15:30 18:00 3rd round 16.08.2026 13:00 15:30 18:00 3rd round 08/17/2026 18:00 They expected a frail Kharkiv — they got a frightened Shakhtar Another match with a loud poster at the start of the new season. Again with the participation of Kharkiv, but now against the current champion of the country. And with the football that Mladen Bartulović's team demonstrated in the game against Zhytomyr Polissia at the beginning of last week (1:3), hardly anyone could seriously believe that the "golden and burgundy" would be able to grab the maximum result in this game. All the more so with such a start - the Kharkiv team stepped on the same rake as the "wolves", simply not collecting their thoughts immediately after the starting whistle, and if they did not manage to punish Rotan's team for this, then Arda Turan's team demonstrated how it should be done. And to be honest, the "miners" themselves were shocked by the fact of such a rapid acquisition of an advantage in the account. They are simply not used to it in their performances lately. As a result, both teams had to discard their initial tactics and move according to the scenario of the development of events on the field. And here we saw that the "miners" are not able to control the game in such conditions at this stage of the season. Gaps in the defense, weak play in the attack, the ball in the opponents' hands (because that's how they planned to play from the beginning, judging by everything), no initiative. But the score on the scoreboard is in favor of Shakhtar. What was also noticeable was the absence of any changes at halftime, which we were already used to during Turan's time, because this coach definitely knows how to convey his thoughts to the players during short conversations. But it was the rare case when Shakhtar had nothing at all, except football fate, which was clearly smiling on the "miners" in all 32. Against the background of all this, Kharkiv's football, which was again frankly limited in the front line for inexplicable reasons, looked something fresh and bright. But at the same time, there was also the question of the skill of the players in the final stage. When even Riznyk started to openly score, and Shakhtar's defense was losing one fight after another, it was simply unwise not to realize all these goal-scoring opportunities. As a result, the "golden and burgundy" lost the second consecutive decisive match at the start of the season, and in the third one they barely won, and if it is still too early to talk about the distance, then the first alarm bells have already sounded. Also for the Turan team. The Carpathians are something incomprehensible, but frightening The beginning of the campaign turns out to be dedicated to the search for the first real opponent for the Lviv Carpathians. Francisco Fernandez's team defeated Kryvbas (4:1) - nothing extraordinary happened here, despite the willful nature of this result, then there was the defeat of LNZ - ​​and here the score formed in the last minutes (3:0) could really surprise many. And in the third round there was another victory of the "green and white". In fact, it is the easiest of all the matches played so far. We continue to get acquainted with Bukovyna from Chernivtsi, and everything is definitely not as bad there, as the lack of goals on the account of Serhii Shishchenko's team can testify. For the second round in a row, it is approaching the fantastic figure for our football of 30 shots on the opponent's goal per game, and this gives a sense of satisfaction from watching the match, no matter how it ends. But against the Carpathians, the game for the "yellow and black" actually ended in the eighth minute, when the score became 2:0 in favor of the Carpathians, who scored extremely easy goals against Herman Penkov. If Kozushko immediately responded to the second missed ball with his effective shot, then there would be something to talk about. And yes, no matter how much Bukovyna attacked, no matter how many mistakes Marchenko made with the ball, uncharacteristically for himself, Shishchenko's team still did not get to the first goal after returning to the "elite". As for the Carpathians, we should note the endurance of Fran's team and the ability to now calmly close such matches at the appropriate moment. Here it happened in the middle of the second half with another goal from Kostenko and now an assist from the rookie Vantukh. Meanwhile, on the question of the real opposition of Lv