The Metalist Chronicle
Squad14 Nov 2033
Taras Dmytruk damages knee ligaments — 33 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 33 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad14 Nov 2033
Tempers go at Metalist
Artem Husol 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.
Squad14 Nov 2033
Carlos Paraco 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.
Player ratings14 Nov 2033
Kyrylo Stepanenko runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout14 Nov 2033
The manager makes an example of Vladyslav Vakula
“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.
The dugout14 Nov 2033
Ivan Kaliuzhnyi has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Metalist 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.
The dugout14 Nov 2033
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Heorhiy Sobol was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Metalist dressing room was either.
Looking ahead14 Nov 2033
Metalist take on the side everybody is chasing
Shakhtar arrive as leaders. A side at the top is beaten roughly once a month, and the club that does it gets a week it remembers for a year.
Squad14 Nov 2033
Artem Derykon is a square peg at Metalist
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.
In brief
- The dugout Ivan Kaliuzhnyi does not fit this one
- Market The Carlos Paraco question follows Metalist around
- Match Metalist and Oleksandriya cancel each other out