Marked for Lázaro
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market21 Jun 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around LNZ people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market21 Jun 2027
The name of Danylo Kravchuk has come up in conversations LNZ were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market21 Jun 2027
Business is business: Mark Assinor goes
Inhulets paid $1.2M and LNZ took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Market21 Jun 2027
LNZ get their man
The chase for Oleh Kryvoruchko ended with $230.0K changing hands and Livyi Bereh out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words exchanged at LNZ
Oleksandr Drambaiev 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 Jun 2027
Muharrem Jashari 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.
Squad21 Jun 2027
LNZ count the cost of losing Lázaro
17 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad21 Jun 2027
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation LNZ are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
When it matters, Cody David plays
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at LNZ training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Muharrem Jashari 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.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Tempers go at LNZ
Shota Nonikashvili 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.
Market14 Jun 2027
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Talles Brener has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at LNZ.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Lázaro signs a new deal
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Lázaro commits to LNZ for another 3 years.
Squad14 Jun 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at LNZ can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
Vitalii Roman has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at LNZ 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.
Market14 Jun 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. LNZ know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Match14 Jun 2027
LNZ in the hunt for Europe
Position 5, 47 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
Mark Assinor 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 Mark Assinor has written the date down.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words exchanged at LNZ
Manolis Saliakas 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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
A row about effort at LNZ
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Muharrem Jashari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
Cody David has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at LNZ 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.
Market26 Apr 2027
The Tedi Cara story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tedi Cara signs something — a contract at LNZ or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Market26 Apr 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at LNZ, another week without a signature from Artur Mykytyshyn.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at LNZ that is a harder question to answer.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
Andrii Yakymiv knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Andrii Yakymiv trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
Ajdi Dajko 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 Ajdi Dajko has written the date down.
Loan watch26 Apr 2027
23 starts and a season average of 6.74. The loan is doing exactly what it was arranged to do.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match13 Feb 2027
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against Rukh, and it could have been more.
Squad15 Feb 2027
The match ball belongs to Tedi Cara, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
$400.0K settles it between the clubs for Jon Ceberio
Epicentr have accepted the money. What LNZ do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Market15 Feb 2027
LNZ say no — this time
The offer from Epicentr for Artur Mykytyshyn was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad15 Feb 2027
18 goals and a season average of 7.34. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Market15 Feb 2027
Add another name to the list: Kryvbas have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mark Assinor. The answer from LNZ has not changed — yet.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Libertad is saying, and nobody at LNZ is enjoying the guessing.
Match13 Feb 2027
Whatever happens, LNZ do not lose
7 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.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
$64.0K on the table at Oleksandriya. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.