The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Dynamo Kyiv people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Dynamo Kyiv will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 The request is on a desk at Dynamo Kyiv, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Prykarpattia for Alexandr Bužek 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.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
$360.0K was the most the club would pay and Karpaty were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Santiago Hezze 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Heorhiy Kulach has, at Dynamo Kyiv, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Dynamo Kyiv asked and Rukh said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yaroslav Shevchenko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Ruslan Karavayev after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
In brief
The dugoutDemian Tretiak back under a manager who knows him
“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 Dynamo Kyiv, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.18 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dmytro Melnichenko will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dynamo Kyiv the goodbyes have quietly begun.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dynamo Kyiv this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Metalist will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Gabriel Gheorghe has pre-agreed a move to Dynamo Kyiv, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Dynamo Kyiv have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Vladyslav Shershen had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“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 Dynamo Kyiv, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nazar Voloshyn and Dynamo Kyiv agree another 2 years.
$300.0K was the most the club would pay and Karpaty were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Stephen Nenè has just signed for Dynamo Kyiv, and for once the answer mattered.
Santiago Hezze 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dynamo Kyiv can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nazar Voloshyn will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dynamo Kyiv the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Dynamo Kyiv people have started saying his name in the past tense.
$3.0M on the table at Metalist. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$790.0K on the table at Metalist. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Filip Halabrin has, at Dynamo Kyiv, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Nyva waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Polissia for Ihor Krasnopir 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.
“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 Dynamo Kyiv, and it is not being withdrawn.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $250.0K — a club that wants Vladimir Skomarovskiy enough to be asked twice.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Yaroslav Shevchenko has, at Dynamo Kyiv, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
$230.0K was the most the club would pay and Vorskla were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Yvan Dibango 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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Dynamo Kyiv people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Dynamo Kyiv and Metalist have settled on $850.0K. 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.
The offer from Rukh for Peter Itodo 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dynamo Kyiv can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. David Carmo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dynamo Kyiv the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Dynamo Kyiv have gone to Vorskla with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Dynamo Kyiv offered $120.0K; Polissia said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The offer from Club Brugge for Volodymyr Brazhko 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Anton Bol will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dynamo Kyiv the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Ihor Krasnopir 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.
20 appearances and 9 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yvan Dibango was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad4 Jun 2035
9 new faces, and Dynamo Kyiv 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.
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.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Dynamo Kyiv will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
13 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dynamo Kyiv they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 9 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dynamo Kyiv this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Dynamo Kyiv hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Santiago Hezze 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.
13 clean sheets from 19 appearances at Karpaty. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
Squad14 May 2035
Words at Dynamo Kyiv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yvan Dibango 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.
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 new man at Dynamo Kyiv has worked with Demian Tretiak before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Anton Bol will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dynamo Kyiv the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Dynamo Kyiv hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Nazar Voloshyn 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Artem Benediuk has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Squad7 May 2035
Words at Dynamo Kyiv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yvan Dibango 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Ihor Krasnopir is on it.
The new man at Dynamo Kyiv has worked with Demian Tretiak before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dynamo Kyiv they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Arsenii Batahov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yvan Dibango was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
11 shut-outs in 23 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Ivan Pakholiuk has been having a lot of them.
10 goals in 22 games at Rukh — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Dynamo Kyiv updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nazar Voloshyn is on it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Ihor Krasnopir 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.
Squad16 Apr 2035
Words at Dynamo Kyiv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yvan Dibango 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.
13 shut-outs in 19 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Denys Ihnatenko has been having a lot of them.
Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv 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.
The new man at Dynamo Kyiv has worked with Demian Tretiak before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Natã Barbosa trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Abdullahi Ibrahim Bewene will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dynamo Kyiv the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dynamo Kyiv this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yvan Dibango was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Dynamo Kyiv know it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Arsenii Batahov is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nazar Voloshyn signs something — a contract at Dynamo Kyiv or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Position 2, 70 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Santiago Hezze and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Mar 2035
Words at Dynamo Kyiv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yvan Dibango 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 training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 5 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
23 appearances at Vorskla and the goals have stopped going in. Dynamo Kyiv lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 70 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
7 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Two goals and a mark of 9.15 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Anton Bol will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dynamo Kyiv the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Inhulets had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Santiago Hezze 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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Dynamo Kyiv have lost him in all but the paperwork.
6 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Yevhenii Pastukh reports back to Dynamo Kyiv with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Abdullahi Ibrahim Bewene will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dynamo Kyiv the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Arsenii Batahov 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Santiago Hezze and Dynamo Kyiv agree another 4 years.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dynamo Kyiv they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Dynamo Kyiv have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Dynamo Kyiv hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Ihor Krasnopir 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.
6 matches without defeat, and then Oleksandriya. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
Squad8 Jan 2035
Words at Dynamo Kyiv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yvan Dibango 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.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Shakhtar on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
Four weeks in which nobody in the division did his job better. The award goes on a shelf and the player goes back into the side, which is the order Dynamo Kyiv prefer.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Peter Itodo
Position 2, 47 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
6 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Dynamo Kyiv had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
7 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.13 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Dynamo Kyiv hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dynamo Kyiv they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
6 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dynamo Kyiv this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yvan Dibango was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv 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.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 88th, and Polissia spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Nazar Voloshyn 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.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Volodymyr Brazhko. 2‑1 against Polissia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad11 Dec 2034
Yvan Dibango 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nazar Voloshyn is on it.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Artem Benediuk will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dynamo Kyiv the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Arsenii Batahov 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.
Chornomorets made Dynamo Kyiv work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad27 Nov 2034
Yvan Dibango 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.
Half the programme played, position 3, 32 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
26 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dynamo Kyiv lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dynamo Kyiv this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yvan Dibango was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The new man at Dynamo Kyiv has worked with Demian Tretiak before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Kostiantyn Vivcharenko’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Dynamo Kyiv needing him to play as if none of it matters.
5 shut-outs in 6 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Denys Ihnatenko has been having a lot of them.
40 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dynamo Kyiv lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
6 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Position 3, 28 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.13 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Santiago Hezze 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Vitaliy Sudakov 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.
Epicentr will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Dynamo Kyiv were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Artem Benediuk will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dynamo Kyiv the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Santiago Hezze and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad30 Oct 2034
Words at Dynamo Kyiv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yvan Dibango 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Ruslan Karavayev could afford to be generous.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dynamo Kyiv lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dynamo Kyiv they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dynamo Kyiv can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Dynamo Kyiv have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Valentyn Shakhov is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Santiago Hezze 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.
Squad16 Oct 2034
Words at Dynamo Kyiv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yvan Dibango 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.
Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Alexandr Bužek
The words a physio says slowly. 32 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dimitar Trajkov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dynamo Kyiv the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Dynamo Kyiv heard it as anything else.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Valentyn Rubchynskyi’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Dynamo Kyiv.
Squad9 Oct 2034
Yvan Dibango 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.