Marked for Patrick Obermüller
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom1 Jan 2029
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Oleksandriya
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad1 Jan 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Oleksandriya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Words at Oleksandriya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danil Skorko is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match30 Dec 2028
Bryan Castillo scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Metalist, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Loan watch1 Jan 2029
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Oleksandriya, and 0 appearances in 25 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout1 Jan 2029
The manager makes an example of Fabiano
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings1 Jan 2029
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The dugout1 Jan 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Oleh Yaremchuk left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad1 Jan 2029
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match25 Nov 2028
Beaten 0‑4 by Kryvbas, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Heorhii Bushchan and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
Roman Didyk gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Guram Giorbelidze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match27 Nov 2028
Half the programme played, position 14, 12 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
Boardroom27 Nov 2028
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑4 defeat, delivered by Oleh Yaremchuk to a room that had heard them before.
Market27 Nov 2028
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Squad27 Nov 2028
One booking too many, and a game watched from the stand. Oleksandriya lose him for the most avoidable reason in the sport.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad20 Nov 2028
Heorhii Bushchan and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad20 Nov 2028
Danil Skorko falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout20 Nov 2028
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout20 Nov 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Viktor Dolhyi's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The dugout20 Nov 2028
Andi Hadroj has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Oleksandriya will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Looking ahead20 Nov 2028
Kryvbas next, and one man in the Oleksandriya dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Market20 Nov 2028
The name of Bryan Castillo keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Oleksandriya say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout20 Nov 2028
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Patrick Obermüller trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Loan watch20 Nov 2028
14 starts and a season average of 6.64. The loan is doing exactly what it was arranged to do.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Transfer targets24 Jul 2028
Fee done, terms next for Ondřej Lingr
Oleksandriya and Korona have settled on $7.0M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Market24 Jul 2028
Dynamo Kyiv come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Oleksandriya did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market24 Jul 2028
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Oleksandriya, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets24 Jul 2028
Oleksandriya had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Chornomorets, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Market24 Jul 2028
Kryvbas paid $960.0K and Oleksandriya took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Heorhii Bushchan and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Teimuraz Tsalughelashvili has just signed for Oleksandriya, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Roman Didyk falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Transfer targets24 Jul 2028
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market8 May 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Oleksandriya they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad8 May 2028
Oleksandr Pikhalionok was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad8 May 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Danil Skorko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout8 May 2028
Viktor Dolhyi is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Squad8 May 2028
Oleksandriya are still strangers to each other
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Boardroom8 May 2028
85% of the income goes out in wages at Oleksandriya
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad8 May 2028
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Oleksandriya would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Market8 May 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Bryan Castillo signs something — a contract at Oleksandriya or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout8 May 2028
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market1 May 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Oleksandriya they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad1 May 2028
Oleksandr Pikhalionok and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout1 May 2028
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad1 May 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad1 May 2028
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Oleksandriya can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Market1 May 2028
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad1 May 2028
Oleksandriya will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
Market1 May 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Jota Pereira’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout1 May 2028
Nazarii Vorobchak has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Oleksandriya will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match28 Feb 2028
First, on 64 points. The table is a fact and a fact is allowed to be enjoyed, which is as far as anybody at the club is prepared to go in public.
Market28 Feb 2028
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Metalurh Zaporizhzhia had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Market28 Feb 2028
The offer from Rukh for Oleksandr Safronov was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market28 Feb 2028
Pablo Castro hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Oleksandriya can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
Maksym Tatarenko: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Oleksandriya have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match26 Feb 2028
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Oleksandriya have 4 straight wins of it.
Boardroom28 Feb 2028
Oleksandriya close the window on a squad of their own making
6 in and 10 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Market28 Feb 2028
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Polissia moved on, Patrick Obermüller reports back to Oleksandriya, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Oleksandr Pikhalionok and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match24 Jan 2028
51 points and nobody above them. The word is not being said around the ground yet, and it is being thought in every seat.
Market24 Jan 2028
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and IMT waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Oleksandriya is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The dugout24 Jan 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Oleksandriya may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market24 Jan 2028
Add another name to the list: Jihlava have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Oleksiy Khoblenko. The answer from Oleksandriya has not changed — yet.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Oleksandr Safronov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match22 Jan 2028
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Oleksandriya. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Match22 Jan 2028
Three points for Oleksandriya, 1‑0 the final word against UCSA in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings24 Jan 2028
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.96 on the card, and the Oleksandriya support went home talking about one name.
Market24 Jan 2028
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Patrick Obermüller has his answer from Oleksandriya; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match5 Jan 2028
A 2‑1 win over Metalist, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match5 Jan 2028
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Oleksandriya scored in the 119th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Market10 Jan 2028
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Oleksandriya, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Oleksandr Pikhalionok and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad10 Jan 2028
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Oleksandriya can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad10 Jan 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Artur Andreychyk and Oleksandriya agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Match8 Jan 2028
Prykarpattia left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Match8 Jan 2028
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Oleksandriya. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad13 Dec 2027
Oleksandr Pikhalionok and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad13 Dec 2027
A muscle injury sidelines Andrii Khoma for 16 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Oleksandriya will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Match11 Dec 2027
A 1‑0 win over Nyva, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Marked 8.06 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Market13 Dec 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Oleksandriya, another week without a signature from Viktor Dolhyi.
The dugout13 Dec 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Oleh Yaremchuk, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Market13 Dec 2027
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Oleksandriya has been clear about where Abdallah Aberkane stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout13 Dec 2027
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad13 Dec 2027
One booking too many, and Oleksandr Safronov sits out. Oleksandriya lose him for the sort of avoidable reason that makes a manager's week longer.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad11 Oct 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Abdallah Aberkane
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Oleksandriya lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market11 Oct 2027
Jota Pereira hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Oleksandriya can pretend not to have heard.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Oleksandr Safronov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Oct 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Artur Andreychyk and Oleksandriya agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Patrick Obermüller, and the manager let it.
Market11 Oct 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Oleksandriya, another week without a signature from Viktor Dolhyi.
Squad11 Oct 2027
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Oleksandriya, and both men came out saying it was fine.