Marked for Andriy Dediaev
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Dec 2026
49 days out for Danylo Knysh after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Victoriia Sumy will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Match19 Dec 2026
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around Victoriia Sumy are no longer polite ones.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Bohdan Biloshevskyi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match19 Dec 2026
Artem Shpyronok scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to Bukovyna, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Stanislav Sharay, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑3, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
Denys Riabyi knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Denys Riabyi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
No place in the plan for Maksym Boiko
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Nov 2026
Danylo Knysh breaks a bone — 93 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 93 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.89 for the rest of it.
Match7 Nov 2026
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Victoriia Sumy are no longer polite ones.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Vladyslav Khameliuk 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.
Market9 Nov 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Vitaliy Tkachuk 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.
Match7 Nov 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Danylo Knysh out for 109 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Victoriia Sumy will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Bohdan Biloshevskyi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Oct 2026
A move Kasjan Semmerling would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Kasjan Semmerling is living that version at Victoriia Sumy, and it tends to show in the first month.
Match24 Oct 2026
2‑3 to Metalist, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
A performance of 8.26 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Maksym Sasovskiy, and the manager let it.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 2‑3, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Denys Dolinskyi 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 dugout26 Oct 2026
Something was said to Artem Nyzhnyk and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.58, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Vladyslav Khameliuk and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Sep 2026
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Ten men and a goalkeeper behind him, and it still finished in the net. He knew before anybody told him, and nobody at Victoriia Sumy needed to.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Denys Boyko kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Dmytro Ulianov 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
One booking too many, and a game watched from the stand. Victoriia Sumy lose him for the most avoidable reason in the sport.
Squad28 Sep 2026
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Stanislav Sharay has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.