“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Poltava, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Tymur Babych has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Poltava this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yaroslav Kocherhin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Poltava are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Words at Poltava training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Verhun 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.
Nobody at Poltava 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.
Christopher Nwaeze and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 May 2031
Words at Poltava training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Shola Ogundana 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Bohdan Kobzar signs something — a contract at Poltava or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Poltava. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Shola Ogundana 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.
Ivan Verhun 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Poltava know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Oleksandr Popovych has written the date down.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Poltava, and it is not being withdrawn.
Shola Ogundana 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.
6 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.
Words at Poltava training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Verhun 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Maksym Hnativ is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Shola Ogundana 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.
Ivan Verhun 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Poltava know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Yaroslav Kocherhin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Shola Ogundana 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dynamo Kyiv have kept their man, and Poltava go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
6 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.
Words at Poltava training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Verhun 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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Poltava have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Maksym Barshak is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The offer from Prykarpattia for Artem Bezprozvannyi 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Shola Ogundana was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Mykyta Bondarenko has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Poltava have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Red Bull Salzburg have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Viktoria Plzen have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Poltava, and it is not being withdrawn.
Shola Ogundana 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jordan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dynamo Kyiv have kept their man, and Poltava go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Poltava have made the call to Dinamo Zagreb. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Vladyslav Babohlo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Mar 2030
Words at Poltava training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Shola Ogundana 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Poltava, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Poltava know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Poltava will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Poltava can pretend not to have heard.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Poltava have done the hard part with FC Copenhagen, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Red Bull Salzburg keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jordan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Stanislav Mihutskyi and Poltava agree another 3 years.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Poltava can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.83 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Poltava are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 95th minute. Bukovyna will replay every second of the added time for a week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Poltava this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Shola Ogundana was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.10, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
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.
A mark of 7.62, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout19 Nov 2029
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Pavlo Karavayev chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Valerii Sad’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Poltava needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Francisco did not need any: 7.95, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Poltava this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Shola Ogundana was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ivan Verhun, and the manager let it.
The dugout29 Oct 2029
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Pavlo Karavayev to a room that had heard them before.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Poltava are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at Poltava 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.
Shola Ogundana 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jordan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Illia Sliota has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
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 deal with Dynamo Kyiv is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ivan Verhun is living that version at Poltava, and it tends to show in the first month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Poltava this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
2‑3 to Feniks, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Words at Poltava 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dynamo Kyiv have kept their man, and Poltava go back to a list with one name crossed off it.