Marked for Vasyl Babenko
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Sep 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Manuel Petrucci
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Chernihiv lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market24 Sep 2029
“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 The request is on a desk at Chernihiv, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Maksym Serdiuk 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.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Pavlo Shushko 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 dugout24 Sep 2029
“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 dugout24 Sep 2029
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The dugout24 Sep 2029
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The dugout24 Sep 2029
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Denys Bezborodko trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Looking ahead24 Sep 2029
The leaders are next for Chernihiv
Epicentr top the table and they are coming into view. Nothing to lose, which is what every manager says before losing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match25 Aug 2029
34 matches without a win for Chernihiv
The run now stands at 34, and the questions being asked around Chernihiv are no longer polite ones.
Squad27 Aug 2029
A fracture rules Denys Bezborodko out for 14 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Chernihiv will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad27 Aug 2029
Vasyl Babenko damages knee ligaments — 17 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
Squad27 Aug 2029
Maksym Serdiuk 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.
Transfer targets27 Aug 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Shakhtar have kept their man, and Chernihiv go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad27 Aug 2029
A row about effort at Chernihiv
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yehor Shalfieiev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match25 Aug 2029
0‑1 to Feniks, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout27 Aug 2029
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout27 Aug 2029
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match18 Aug 2029
33 matches without a win for Chernihiv
The run now stands at 33, and the questions being asked around Chernihiv are no longer polite ones.
Squad20 Aug 2029
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 21 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad20 Aug 2029
24 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Chernihiv lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad20 Aug 2029
Words exchanged at Chernihiv
Maksym Serdiuk 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.
Match18 Aug 2029
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad20 Aug 2029
Yehor Shalfieiev 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 dugout20 Aug 2029
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Player ratings20 Aug 2029
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom20 Aug 2029
The Chernihiv debt reaches $11.4M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
In brief
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The dugout
Kristiāns Mežsargs gets it from the manager
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Boardroom
Wages eat 98% of everything Chernihiv earn
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match11 Aug 2029
No end in sight to Chernihiv's wait for a win
32 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Chernihiv has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad13 Aug 2029
A fracture rules Denys Bezborodko out for 28 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Chernihiv will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market13 Aug 2029
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Chernihiv have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Transfer targets13 Aug 2029
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.
Squad13 Aug 2029
Words at Chernihiv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pavlo Shushko 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 dugout13 Aug 2029
“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 dugout13 Aug 2029
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Player ratings13 Aug 2029
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad13 Aug 2029
Words exchanged at Chernihiv
Denys Holub 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.