Marked for Taras Kovalenko
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad25 Oct 2027
Taras Kovalenko damages knee ligaments — 21 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
Match25 Oct 2027
Every point is an argument now for Metalist
Position 15 and 10 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Match23 Oct 2027
8 matches without a win for Metalist
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Metalist are no longer polite ones.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Dmytro Shcherbak 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 Oct 2027
Nika Gagnidze 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.
Match23 Oct 2027
Yaroslav Karpizin scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to Probiy, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad25 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Braian Vargas, and the manager let it.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom25 Oct 2027
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Oct 2027
Taras Kovalenko damages knee ligaments — 28 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
Match16 Oct 2027
7 matches without a win for Metalist
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Metalist are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings18 Oct 2027
A brace, and Orest Kuzyk takes the afternoon — 8.10
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Orest Kuzyk provided it, and the 8.10 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad18 Oct 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metalist this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Oct 2027
The manager makes an example of Yuriy Kravchuk
“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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Metalist training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oleksandr Myziuk 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Oct 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Taras Kovalenko
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Metalist lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match9 Oct 2027
No end in sight to Metalist's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Metalist has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad11 Oct 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Dmytro Shcherbak 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Nika Gagnidze 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 ratings11 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Aug 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Metalist may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
Bohdan Porokh pops up at the right end — 7.86
7.86, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Match31 Jul 2027
4 matches without a win for Metalist
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Metalist are no longer polite ones.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Dmytro Shcherbak 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.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
Graduation day at Metalist
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Match31 Jul 2027
Feniks left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Artur Rudko, and the manager let it.
Market2 Aug 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Denys Dovbyk has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market2 Aug 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Vitaliy Kravets is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.