Marked for Vasyl Stepanenko
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Vasyl Stepanenko
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Victoriia Sumy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom7 Dec 2026
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Victoriia Sumy
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad7 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Victoriia Sumy this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match5 Dec 2026
6 matches without a win, and then this, against Podillia. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Victoriia Sumy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Poreba 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 terraces7 Dec 2026
At 22 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.
Match5 Dec 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ihor Horbach. 1‑0 against Podillia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.90 on the card, and the Victoriia Sumy support went home talking about one name.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
In brief
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Squad
Diego Arroyo named in the team of the month
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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The dugout
Maksym Boiko gets it from the manager
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Nov 2026
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Victoriia Sumy lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The terraces30 Nov 2026
Supporters organise against the Victoriia Sumy board
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.
Match30 Nov 2026
10 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Match28 Nov 2026
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Victoriia Sumy are no longer polite ones.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Dmytro Ulianov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Victoriia Sumy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danylo Knysh 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 terraces30 Nov 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Diego Arroyo 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.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
Wages swallow 117% of the Victoriia Sumy income
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Match30 Nov 2026
10 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad23 Nov 2026
34 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Victoriia Sumy lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Victoriia Sumy may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match21 Nov 2026
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Transfer targets23 Nov 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Diego Arroyo 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Danylo Knysh was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match21 Nov 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Danylo Knysh, and the manager let it.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Victoriia Sumy are still strangers to each other
11 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Vasyl Stepanenko
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Victoriia Sumy lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Transfer targets16 Nov 2026
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Diego Arroyo 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
A move Ivaylo Nedelchev would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ivaylo Nedelchev is living that version at Victoriia Sumy, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and David Poreba was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Something was said to Ihor Horbach and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Market16 Nov 2026
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Oleksandr Lytvynenko, and the manager let it.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Ahrobiznes in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.