Marked for Yannick Bujard
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Bukovyna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maksym Voitikhovskyi 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 dugout10 May 2027
Oleh Ilin asks for a word with the manager
“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.
The dugout10 May 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Market10 May 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Yannick Bujard signs something — a contract at Bukovyna or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Loan watch10 May 2027
15 days left on the agreement, 27 appearances behind him, and two clubs who have both been putting off the same conversation.
Squad10 May 2027
The word out of the training ground is that he has been the sharpest man there all week. It is the quietest story a paper carries and it usually runs the week before somebody's run in the side begins.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout12 Apr 2027
“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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Viacheslav Tankovskyi 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
A row about effort at Bukovyna
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Maksym Voitikhovskyi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Bukovyna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market12 Apr 2027
The name of Yannick Bujard keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Bukovyna say nothing, which says plenty.
Squad12 Apr 2027
The penny has dropped for Daniel Orduz
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Bukovyna the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match4 Jan 2027
Bukovyna refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 35 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
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. Bukovyna will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Yannick Bujard gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Yannick Bujard has just signed for Bukovyna, and for once the answer mattered.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 22. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad4 Jan 2027
A falling-out at Bukovyna
Viacheslav Tankovskyi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad4 Jan 2027
38 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Match2 Jan 2027
Still nobody has beaten Bukovyna
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
The dugout4 Jan 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.
Match2 Jan 2027
Three points for Bukovyna, 1‑0 the final word against Probiy in a contest settled by the finer margins.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what St. Gallen can pretend not to have heard.
Market7 Sep 2026
The bid was some way short and St. Gallen did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market7 Sep 2026
The name of Christian Witzig has come up in conversations St. Gallen were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
$2.2M was the most the club would pay and Thun 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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 20 signed and 3 gone
That is the business done at St. Gallen until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Market7 Sep 2026
St. Gallen have made Christian Witzig available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.