Marked for Yaroslav Stepanenko
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market6 Mar 2028
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Rukh waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market6 Mar 2028
The offer from Minsk for Bohdan Redushko 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.
Market6 Mar 2028
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.
Market6 Mar 2028
The deal that would have taken Vladyslav Zakharchenko to Polissia has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Dynamo Kyiv with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Nazar Voloshyn 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.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Mykola Shaparenko 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.
Squad6 Mar 2028
A place in the month's best eleven for Artem Somka
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Artem Somka has come out of that comparison in the side, and Dynamo Kyiv have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout6 Mar 2028
Mykola Shaparenko has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Dynamo Kyiv 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 dugout6 Mar 2028
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Oleksandr Pikhalionok trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom28 Feb 2028
Dynamo Kyiv close the window on a squad of their own making
1 in and 4 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Market28 Feb 2028
Only the photograph left for Ivan Andreiko
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivan Andreiko will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dynamo Kyiv the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Nazar Voloshyn and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Feb 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Yaroslav Stepanenko and Dynamo Kyiv agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Loan watch28 Feb 2028
“I did not go to Podillia to sit and watch. I want to come back to Dynamo Kyiv and fight for my place.” 4 appearances in 31 matches say the rest.
Market28 Feb 2028
Polissia are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Dynamo Kyiv will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Dynamo Kyiv will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Vitaliy Buialskyi 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
Uneasy
The dugout19 Apr 2027
Heorhii Bushchan: 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Patrick Dragovic 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Nazar Voloshyn 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.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
“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 dugout19 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 Vladyslav Kabaiev is on it.
Market19 Apr 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Kostiantyn Vivcharenko signs something — a contract at Dynamo Kyiv or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Loan watch19 Apr 2027
36 days of the agreement remain and 21 appearances sit behind him. Somebody has to decide what happens next.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Matvii Ponomarenko is training like a man with a point to make
Nobody has promised him anything and he has not asked. The coaching staff have noticed, which at this stage of a season is the only thing that matters.