Marked for Oleksandr Dragan
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market2 Aug 2027
The bid was some way short and LNZ did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Match31 Jul 2027
LNZ make home a hard place to visit
12 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.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
Everything agreed with Rukh, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Botafogo is saying, and nobody at LNZ is enjoying the guessing.
Match31 Jul 2027
Nobody wants to play LNZ right now
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.
Market2 Aug 2027
The shirt still fits. Ivan Tyshchenko is back at LNZ, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Oleksandr Dragan has just signed for LNZ, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at LNZ training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oleksandr Drambaiev 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.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Estudiantes have kept their man, and LNZ go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 May 2027
53 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Venezia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad31 May 2027
Albion Rrahmani 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.
Squad31 May 2027
Words exchanged at Venezia
Alfred Duncan 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.
The dugout31 May 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Thierry Rendall Correia trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout31 May 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.
Market31 May 2027
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Venezia has been clear about where Alessandro Plizzari stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout31 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 Oleksandr Dragan is on it.
The dugout31 May 2027
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Venezia. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 36. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Apr 2027
A fracture rules Davide Guarneri out for 15 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Venezia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match24 Apr 2027
Venezia cannot stop winning
5 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.
Market26 Apr 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ridgeciano Haps will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Venezia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
A defender's goal wins it for Venezia — 7.75
1 for Simon Sohm, marked 7.75, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Market26 Apr 2027
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Thierry Rendall Correia wants continental football; whether Venezia can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The terraces26 Apr 2027
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Match24 Apr 2027
Three points for Venezia, 2‑0 the final word against Spezia in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Match24 Apr 2027
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Venezia. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Nov 2026
17 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Venezia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match4 Nov 2026
The cup run ends for Venezia
2‑3 against Modena, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Marked 7.71 at 19, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Market9 Nov 2026
“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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Juan Jesus 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 Venezia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
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 dugout9 Nov 2026
Kike Pérez gets it from the manager
“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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
One of those days for Akor Adams
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.02, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match23 Sep 2026
Cup progress for Venezia
A 2‑0 win over Triestina, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.01 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from Oleksandr Dragan at 19 — 7.65
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Oleksandr Dragan did not need any: 7.65, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match26 Sep 2026
Venezia cannot stop winning
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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Venezia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“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.
The terraces28 Sep 2026
He is 19 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Match26 Sep 2026
It finished 2‑0, and it was Akor Adams’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Venezia.