It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kryvbas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jonatan Reis and Kryvbas agree another 2 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Kristian Mba 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 hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jhoel Maya did not need any: 8.06, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kryvbas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Giovany Herbert has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Nobody at Kryvbas 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.
Yvan Dibango 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Jonatan Reis will call it something else in private.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Giovany Herbert has come out of that comparison in the side, and Kryvbas have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Yvan Dibango 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Kryvbas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dija Baiano 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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kryvbas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Nobody at Kryvbas 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.
Yvan Dibango 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Bar Lin has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Marked 8.40 — 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.
10 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
10 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Kryvbas can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kryvbas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
7 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Kryvbas can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kryvbas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Kryvbas can tell you which week it ends in.
Yvan Dibango 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Bar Lin has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Kryvbas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dija Baiano 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.
A 2‑0 win over Livyi Bereh, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Joseph Jones, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.85
A mark of 7.85 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Yvan Dibango 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.
The name of Oleksandr Kamenskyi has come up in conversations Kryvbas were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Marked 8.12 — 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.
The offer from Shakhtar for Jan Jurčec 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.
Yvan Dibango 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Kryvbas are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Dynamo Kyiv? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Nobody at Kryvbas is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
A season-long audition: Olympiacos still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Kryvbas's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.