Real Pharma Odesa - Tavriya Simferopol (0-3)

Sep 18, 2021
Druha Liga, Ukraine
Ivan Stadium, Odesa

I was born in Odesa and lived there up until I turned 30. And yet, this stadium and the entire area is a real terra incognito for me. There was never a team there, I have never heard about any competitions at the stadium before a local businessman bought the ground in early 2000s and reconstructed it for his team to participate in the amateur football league. Nowadays a professional 3rd tier team plays here, and as you can guess from its name, this is not really a club with any history. Moreover, it moved several times but came back to play in Odesa and its owner, who's in his 50s, still occasionally plays alongside with his son. No wonder they are in a relegation zone. 

I was visiting my hometown just on the day when Real Pharma played Tavriya Simferopol at the ground that I actually was very curious to see. It is in Slobodka and I have only been at this area a couple of times in my life and never on my own. I actually had to check google maps to see how to get there and decided to go on foot. But as I left home, it started raining. Nothing too bad, but even an average rain turns Odesa into a flood zone, and that is especially true for the area of the stadium. I seriously regretted my decision to walk as I was jumping around puddles. Approaching the stadium I had to walk along a narrow street with small sidewalks and every passing car doused me in rainwater. Finally I saw glimpses of the ground from a distance. 

I need to say few words about the area. Slobodka is a huge forgotten district that is a mishmash of various architecture styles. In fact, there is no style, it's just everyone for themselves. It looks like nothing has changed for this area from the times of the first settlers in the southern shores of the Black Sea. The closest comparison would probably be Rio favelas (where I have never been, but I have never been in this area before either). You are greeted with broken roads, crooked residential houses, fences, grey garages and feral animals. It's the next level of the often overused word "grittiness". And then you have this view...

Ivan Stadium could not be more similar to the surroundings. It's a wonderful mixture of so many little things all crammed into one. You have a cool entrance with the name of the stadium and two cartoon bears holding the letters, you have a fountain with the pool, a makeshift covered stand, another stand with a rickety camera tower, a small golf field, flag masts, old dirty seats and other things that I probably forget about. And on top of it all, a railway goes right above the ground with all kinds of trains passing while the game is on. I loved every little thing of it. Turns out there were paper entry tickets and you could even get programs but unfortunately I was late for those. 

And here is a little bit of trivia. Tavriya Simferopol is the first champion of Ukraine and still the only team outside of Dynamo and Shakhtar who managed to win the gold. Unfortunately, the club had to be restarted outside of the occupied Ukrainian territory and they are now playing in Kherson oblast. They had a small travelling section of the fans, who had escaped the occupation and now probably live in other Ukrainian cities. Real Pharma has no organized support whatsoever but some characters in the stands are famous for following any sport teams from Odessa, be it football or volleyball.

Real Pharma had lost all their games prior to this and nobody really expected anything from them. But they tried and gave their best, only conceding a single goal  before half-time. But then the second half saw them getting a red card and conceding two more goals near the end of the game. Unlike Tavria, they had a couple of visible minority legionnaires and one of the coached complained they could not understand instructions yet. 

Overall I highly recommend anyone try and visit the ground while it still has any professional games. It might be the quirkiest ground I ever saw in my football travels and it's probably a more rewarding experience than watching the main team of Odesa these days.