Marked for Serhii Kiblytskyi
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 May 2027
A falling-out at Kolos
Elias Telles and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad10 May 2027
Eduardo Guerrero 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 dugout10 May 2027
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 Ruslan Stepaniuk is on it.
The dugout10 May 2027
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market10 May 2027
The name of Nika Gagnidze keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Kolos say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout10 May 2027
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Anton Salabai has written the date down.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market19 Apr 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Kolos will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad19 Apr 2027
A falling-out at Kolos
Alaa Ghram and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Apr 2027
The medical room confirms 80 days on the sidelines for Cleitinho, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Kolos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eduardo Guerrero 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 dugout19 Apr 2027
“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.
Market19 Apr 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Kolos know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Loan watch19 Apr 2027
28 appearances away from home and 6 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
The dugout19 Apr 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Apr 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Elias Telles in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kolos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Kolos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eduard Kozik 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 dugout12 Apr 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.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
Ruslan Stepaniuk has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Kolos 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.
Market12 Apr 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nika Gagnidze signs something — a contract at Kolos or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Apr 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
Ruslan Stepaniuk: 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.” Kolos have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad5 Apr 2027
A falling-out at Kolos
Andrii Poniedielnik and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Apr 2027
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at Kolos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eduardo Guerrero 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 dugout5 Apr 2027
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Kolos told Eduardo Guerrero something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market29 Mar 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 45 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
This is not rotation. Nika Gagnidze has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Kolos is pretending otherwise.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Tempers go at Kolos
Nika Gagnidze 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
A row about effort at Kolos
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Eduardo Guerrero was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market29 Mar 2027
Mykyta Burda is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Kolos has been clear about where Mykyta Burda stands, which is more than many ever get.
Market29 Mar 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Elias Telles’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market29 Mar 2027
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Nika Gagnidze may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ruslan Stepaniuk trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.