The Metalist Chronicle
Match28 Jul 2029
Chastening afternoon for Metalist
A 1‑4 beating by Oleksandriya was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Market30 Jul 2029
Matvii Panchenko agrees terms with Chornomorets
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Metalist people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market30 Jul 2029
Carlos González asks to leave Metalist
“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.
Squad30 Jul 2029
Marian Shved in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad30 Jul 2029
Real improvement from Ruslan Sirenko at Metalist
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ruslan Sirenko is 17, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad30 Jul 2029
Ermir Rashica has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Boardroom30 Jul 2029
6 academy players handed senior numbers at Metalist
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad30 Jul 2029
Nicolás Arévalo 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 ratings30 Jul 2029
Ermir Rashica was unplayable
Successful dribbles: 20. 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
- The dugout No hiding place for Rafael Profini
- Market One of our own: Ruslan Karavayev joins the Metalist first team
- Market Vladyslav Buialskyi steps up from the Metalist academy