Futsal

Kharkiv IT League

My passion for futsal began with the Kharkiv IT League, where I debuted with Zfort Group in 2009. In just the second season we won the final against GraceHoppers 2:1, and I, as team captain, scored the winning goal.

Over the following years, thanks to company president Dmytro Chekalin, Zfort Group became one of Kharkiv’s strongest IT teams: we gained coach Oleksii Leusenko and one of our strongest “legionnaires,” Serhii Yalyshev. The team was among the first in Kharkiv to get its own professional website, one of whose highlights was a prediction contest that went on to become a fixture of every later IT tournament. As the number of legionnaires grew over time, only the company’s strongest players stayed on the first team, while Zfort-2 was open to any employee. In 2014 the team won the league a second time, beating GraceHoppers 3:0 in the final.

After I left Zfort Group I remained the team’s owner as it was renamed F5, with Serhii Yalyshev becoming player-coach. The team won the IT League title a third time in 2021, defeating ArtLemon 1:0.

Other Teams and Tournaments

Beyond the IT League, I’ve also played for the futsal teams Cykoria, Zhyrnov, and GlobalLogic in local tournaments such as the FC Univer Cup and the Kharkiv Cup, playing under the well-known Ukrainian coach Yurii Kobzar.

FC Phoenix

My son, Eldar Bratchuk, is a Kharkiv Cup winner and a Ukrainian championship winner with the youth futsal club Phoenix. For my part, I served as the development manager for the club’s website and was, among other things, one of the initiators of its sports analytics department, built on tracking and analyzing the tactical and technical performance of young players.

FC Phoenix