Marked for Mukhammad Dzhurabaiev
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market11 Jan 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rukh can pretend not to have heard.
Match9 Jan 2027
The wait goes on for Rukh
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Up for the corner, and Vlad Răileanu delivers — 7.90
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Vlad Răileanu scored, was marked 7.90, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Tempers go at Rukh
Matěj Valenta 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
At 18 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.
Boardroom11 Jan 2027
Rukh agree a free transfer for Luiz Yano
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Rukh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Klayver 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 dugout11 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.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
In brief
-
Match
Rukh and Poltava take a point apiece
-
The dugout
The manager’s verdict
-
Squad
Muhammed Jobe has had enough of the bench
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Vlad Răileanu goes up and wins it — 7.72
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 7.72 for the rest of it.
Squad21 Dec 2026
The step up is real for Tutti
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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at Rukh
Oleksandr Safronov 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Klayver 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 dugout21 Dec 2026
“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.
Match19 Dec 2026
Rukh and Epicentr take a point apiece
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Valentyn Bezus after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Viktor Tsukanov is the weekend's best young player
At 20 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Matěj Valenta goes up and wins it — 7.94
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 7.94 for the rest of it.
Squad23 Nov 2026
A row about effort at Rukh
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matěj Valenta was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Rukh
Denis Norenkov 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Rukh are still strangers to each other
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Match21 Nov 2026
It needed Matěj Valenta to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Kryvbas, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Valentyn Bezus was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Rukh dressing room was either.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, Rukh have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.
Looking ahead23 Nov 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Polissia in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“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 Oct 2026
Tutti is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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 Oct 2026
Matěj Valenta 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Rukh
Lassana Faye 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Rukh are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Market12 Oct 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Dynamo Kyiv next, and one man in the Rukh dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Oleh Kudryk has been promised minutes
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 Oleh Kudryk has written the date down.
In brief
-
The dugout
Tutti knocks on the manager’s door
-
Market
Rukh shop where it costs nothing
-
Looking ahead
Looking ahead: Dynamo Kyiv at home