“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Polissia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Polissia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Polissia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oleksandr Karavaiev 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Polissia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Words at Polissia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oleksandr Karavaiev 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.
“I watch every Polissia game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Oleksandriya runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
0‑1 away to the standard of Brighton. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
The terraces22 Feb 2027
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 28 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
A first appearance Nazar Semenenko will want to forget — 5.58
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.58, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Polissia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
21 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Oleksandr Nazarenko. 1‑0 against Rukh, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Oleksandriya will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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 7.70 for the rest of 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 Oleksandriya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Oleksandriya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fernando Henrique 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 name of Yevhen Smyrnyi has come up in conversations Oleksandriya were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I watch every Oleksandriya game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Inhulets runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
8 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Position 1, 54 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.
16 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Polissia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lindon Emërllahu 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.
Eduard Sarapii 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.
Boca Juniors paid $14.8M and Polissia took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
14 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
He is going to Boca Juniors, the club has $14.8M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Lindon Emërllahu 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.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Polissia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
8 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
Lindon Emërllahu 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Mykyta Kravchenko reports back to Polissia with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
“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.
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Polissia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lindon Emërllahu 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.
16 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
13 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.