Marked for Daniel Bauer
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad31 Mar 2036
A fracture rules Volodymyr Shvets out for 16 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Victoriia Sumy will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market31 Mar 2036
“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.
Market31 Mar 2036
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Victoriia Sumy is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad31 Mar 2036
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.
Squad31 Mar 2036
Words at Victoriia Sumy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martin Pedersen 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.
Squad31 Mar 2036
A muscle injury and 17 days out for Alvin Mangeni
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Victoriia Sumy will quote 17 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The dugout31 Mar 2036
The manager makes an example of Martin Pedersen
“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 dugout31 Mar 2036
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Victoriia Sumy, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market31 Mar 2036
The clock does Nikson Moreira’s negotiating for him
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Victoriia Sumy could ask drops and the wages Nikson Moreira can ask rise.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Mar 2036
A knee injury of the worst kind for Denys Zelentsov
25 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.
Squad17 Mar 2036
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom17 Mar 2036
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Victoriia Sumy is running low.
Market17 Mar 2036
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Victoriia Sumy can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout17 Mar 2036
“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.
Squad17 Mar 2036
Martin Pedersen 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.
Boardroom17 Mar 2036
The borrowing at Victoriia Sumy reaches $13.5M
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $13.5M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
Squad17 Mar 2036
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Victoriia Sumy know it.
The dugout17 Mar 2036
The manager has not finished forgetting Borys Lototskyi's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Mar 2036
39 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.
Squad3 Mar 2036
44 days out for Volodymyr Shvets after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Victoriia Sumy will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Boardroom3 Mar 2036
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Match1 Mar 2036
7 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.
Market3 Mar 2036
Nikson Moreira has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Victoriia Sumy they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market3 Mar 2036
“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 Victoriia Sumy, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom3 Mar 2036
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad3 Mar 2036
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.
Boardroom3 Mar 2036
$641.5K of the owner's money at Victoriia Sumy
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Jan 2036
86 days out for Volodymyr Shvets after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Victoriia Sumy will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Boardroom21 Jan 2036
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Victoriia Sumy is running low.
Market21 Jan 2036
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Victoriia Sumy can pretend not to have heard.
Squad21 Jan 2036
Bohdan Biloshevskyi 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.
Match19 Jan 2036
Stefan Junuzovic scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to Nyva, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
The dugout21 Jan 2036
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout21 Jan 2036
Daniel Bauer gets it from the manager
“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.
The dugout21 Jan 2036
Illia Sliota knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Illia Sliota trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout21 Jan 2036
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Jan 2036
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 93 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market14 Jan 2036
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Victoriia Sumy can pretend not to have heard.
Match12 Jan 2036
The 87th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Bohdan Matvienko decided nobody was going anywhere. Veres had no time left to answer.
Match12 Jan 2036
9 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Veres were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Squad14 Jan 2036
Bohdan Biloshevskyi 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.
The terraces14 Jan 2036
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Oleh Kravets 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.
Player ratings14 Jan 2036
Oleh Kravets beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 19. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout14 Jan 2036
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Bohdan Biloshevskyi, and the manager let it.
Match12 Jan 2036
Three points for Victoriia Sumy, 1‑0 the final word against Veres in a contest settled by the finer margins.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings5 Nov 2035
Successful dribbles: 45. 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.
Boardroom5 Nov 2035
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Market5 Nov 2035
“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.
Match5 Nov 2035
Every point is an argument now for Victoriia Sumy
Position 14 and 12 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.
Squad5 Nov 2035
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Bohdan Biloshevskyi and Victoriia Sumy agree another 2 years.
Squad5 Nov 2035
Bohdan Biloshevskyi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom5 Nov 2035
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
The dugout5 Nov 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Borys Lototskyi, and the manager let it.
Boardroom5 Nov 2035
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom20 Aug 2035
Victoriia Sumy interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Interim Coach keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
Match18 Aug 2035
No end in sight to Victoriia Sumy's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Victoriia Sumy has to find a result from somewhere.
Transfer targets20 Aug 2035
Everything agreed with Karpaty, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad20 Aug 2035
16 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad20 Aug 2035
Bohdan Biloshevskyi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets20 Aug 2035
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.
Match18 Aug 2035
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad20 Aug 2035
Words at Victoriia Sumy training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martin Pedersen 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.
Boardroom20 Aug 2035
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Jul 2035
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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 Jul 2035
“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 Victoriia Sumy, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets16 Jul 2035
The deal with Vorskla is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Transfer targets16 Jul 2035
No thanks: Eduard Burda rejects the move
Victoriia Sumy had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Shakhtar, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad16 Jul 2035
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.
Transfer targets16 Jul 2035
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rukh have kept their man, and Victoriia Sumy go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Boardroom16 Jul 2035
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Transfer targets16 Jul 2035
A loan move for Herts Bohdan is in the works
Victoriia Sumy have made the call to Kudrivka. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad16 Jul 2035
6 new faces, and Victoriia Sumy 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
Crisis
Squad18 Jun 2035
53 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.
Market18 Jun 2035
“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 Victoriia Sumy, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets18 Jun 2035
The paperwork begins on Artem Vanat
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Victoriia Sumy have done the hard part with Metalist, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad18 Jun 2035
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.
Transfer targets18 Jun 2035
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rukh have kept their man, and Victoriia Sumy go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Boardroom18 Jun 2035
No fees may be paid for anybody, whatever the squad needs. Every rumour about this club until it lifts is a rumour about a deal that cannot be done.
Squad18 Jun 2035
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Victoriia Sumy know it.
Market18 Jun 2035
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Transfer targets18 Jun 2035
A loan enquiry to Rukh: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.