Marked for Yaroslav Buravtsov
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market11 Oct 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yaroslav Buravtsov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dynamo Kyiv the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Ruben Loftus-Cheek and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Dynamo Kyiv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mykola Shaparenko 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.
Match9 Oct 2027
Still nobody has beaten Dynamo Kyiv
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match9 Oct 2027
After 5 games, Dynamo Kyiv finally taste it again
The first defeat in 5 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Kolos; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Squad11 Oct 2027
A season average of 7.35 with 8 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings11 Oct 2027
Leandro Andrade was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.01. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kristian Bilovar, and the manager let it.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
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
Upbeat
Match11 Sep 2027
Losing 0‑2 is one thing; losing to Shakhtar in a derby is a wound that takes months to close.
Boardroom13 Sep 2027
Window shuts: 8 in, 25 out at Dynamo Kyiv
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 8 arrived, 25 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Market13 Sep 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dynamo Kyiv they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Christos Zafeiris 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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
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.
Match11 Sep 2027
After 5 games, Dynamo Kyiv finally taste it again
The first defeat in 5 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Shakhtar; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Words at Dynamo Kyiv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kostiantyn Vivcharenko 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 dugout13 Sep 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad13 Sep 2027
8 new faces, and Dynamo Kyiv 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad16 Aug 2027
Fedir Zadorozhnyi damages knee ligaments — 14 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
Market16 Aug 2027
“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 Dynamo Kyiv, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad16 Aug 2027
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Market16 Aug 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Victoriia Sumy waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Match14 Aug 2027
The run at home goes on for Dynamo Kyiv
14 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Market16 Aug 2027
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
Matvii Ponomarenko, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.70
A mark of 7.70 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Maksym Hrodzinskyi 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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Leandro Andrade 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Jul 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Andrii Iarmolenko
46 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dynamo Kyiv lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
$18.3M was the most the club would pay and Espanyol were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Market5 Jul 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Victoriia Sumy waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Match5 Jul 2027
Dynamo Kyiv are in among the leaders
Position 3 and 64 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad5 Jul 2027
He is 18, he is averaging 6.58, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Market5 Jul 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
The dugout5 Jul 2027
Oleksii Sych: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Dynamo Kyiv have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Chornomorets have kept their man, and Dynamo Kyiv go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad5 Jul 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Jun 2027
54 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Dynamo Kyiv lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
$16.0M on the table at Espanyol. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Metalist is saying, and nobody at Dynamo Kyiv is enjoying the guessing.
Market28 Jun 2027
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Transfer targets28 Jun 2027
$4.6M was the most the club would pay and LNZ were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Market28 Jun 2027
So close: Denys Popov’s move dies late
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Kudrivka moved on, Denys Popov reports back to Dynamo Kyiv, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Taras Mykhavko is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Christos Zafeiris and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market5 Apr 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad5 Apr 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nikola Vasilj and Dynamo Kyiv agree another 3 years.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Ruben Loftus-Cheek 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mykola Shaparenko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Loan watch5 Apr 2027
“I did not go to LNZ to sit and watch. I want to come back to Dynamo Kyiv and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 7 matches say the rest.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
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 Christos Zafeiris is on it.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mykola Mykhailenko trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market25 Jan 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.45 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad25 Jan 2027
16 goals and a season average of 7.49. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Christos Zafeiris 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.
Match23 Jan 2027
Epicentr made Dynamo Kyiv work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Match23 Jan 2027
The run at home goes on for Dynamo Kyiv
8 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Loan watch25 Jan 2027
26 appearances away from home and 13 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
Looking ahead25 Jan 2027
The big one: LNZ come into view
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Dynamo Kyiv will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.