Marked for Roman Salenko
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 51. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 96 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match25 Aug 2027
The small margins put Dynamo Kyiv out
Out, 0‑0 to UCSA, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Both of them Clayton's — 8.96
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.96, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match28 Aug 2027
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Clayton 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.
Market30 Aug 2027
Fulham are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Dynamo Kyiv will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words at Dynamo Kyiv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mykola Shaparenko 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.
Match28 Aug 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Clayton. 2‑0 against LNZ, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market12 Jul 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market12 Jul 2027
Nazar Voloshyn wants to know where this is going
“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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Clayton 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 Dynamo Kyiv this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Roman Salenko is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad12 Jul 2027
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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kostiantyn Vivcharenko, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Roman Salenko
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zorya lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Zorya
Jakov Bašić 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Zorya do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Zorya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jordan 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A month that belonged to Artem Slesar
The young player of the month award goes to a 21-year-old at Zorya who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Roman Salenko
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Zorya lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market28 Sep 2026
Jordan wants European nights
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Jordan 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 Zorya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Dorlan Pabón 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Zorya
10 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
Roman Salenko damages knee ligaments — 35 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Artem Slesar, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.46
A mark of 8.46 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Zorya
Jakov Bašić 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Zorya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dorlan Pabón 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 terraces21 Sep 2026
Zorya supporters have found a favourite in Artem Slesar
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Artem Slesar 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
It finished 2‑0, and it was Artem Slesar’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Zorya.