“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kolos can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings4 Mar 2030
A brace, and Oli Newman takes the afternoon — 8.15
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Oli Newman provided it, and the 8.15 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Kolos asked and Shakhtar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Oli Newman 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.
Kolos ran out of time with Epicentr. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yurii Klymchuk 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.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 87th, and Chornomorets spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kolos is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Oleksandr Pikhalionok 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Maksym Kucheriavyi has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Kolos have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yurii Klymchuk 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.47 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kolos is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Oleksandr Pikhalionok 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.
50 goals for the club, every one of them filed away in the memory of a supporter somewhere.
Squad26 Nov 2029
Oleh Ilin 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Vladyslav Shershen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Kolos the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yurii Klymchuk 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 will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Nobody at Kolos 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Obolon in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kolos is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Oleksandr Pikhalionok 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 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nazariy Pikhalyonok after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Kolos, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Luka Stankovski scored, was marked 7.74, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Oleksandr Pikhalionok 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.
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 point taken on 86 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
7 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.
“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 Kolos, and it is not being withdrawn.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 86 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kolos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Kolos will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
32 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Epicentr lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The deal with Karpaty 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.
Oleksandriya pay $470.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Shakhtar have kept their man, and Epicentr go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
In brief
Squad5 new faces, and Epicentr are still learning each other
Kolos have gone to Oleksandriya with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Oleksandr Pikhalionok 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yurii Klymchuk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Add another name to the list: Probiy have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Vladyslav Shershen. The answer from Kolos has not changed — yet.
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.
Squad16 Jul 2029
6 new faces, and Kolos are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Epicentr can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Epicentr 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 Carlos Rojas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Epicentr 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.
“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 Epicentr will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The mood at Epicentr has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Epicentr can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Kyrylo Kovalets 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrii Kozhukhar was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Epicentr this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Jan 2029
Carlos Rojas 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.
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 Maksym Yevpak is on it.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Kostiantyn Shevchuk after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Polissia next, and one man in the Epicentr dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“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 Epicentr, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Epicentr have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Kyrylo Kovalets 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.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Words at Epicentr training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Carlos Rojas 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Epicentr will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Epicentr they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Kyrylo Kovalets 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.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at Epicentr training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lukáš Masopust 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 Epicentr, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody at Epicentr 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Epicentr know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.