“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Prykarpattia can pretend not to have heard.
Andrii Liashenko 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.
Nobody at Prykarpattia 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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Prykarpattia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Andrii Liashenko 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Maksym Protsiv was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ruslan Buriak trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Prykarpattia 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 words a physio says slowly. 50 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.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 32 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
“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 The request is on a desk at Prykarpattia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Andrii Liashenko 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 dugout15 Mar 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Artem Sudakov chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
0‑3 to Metalist, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Andrii Liashenko 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Prykarpattia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Petriak 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Artem Sudakov after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad11 Jan 2027
A Prykarpattia teenager takes the young player award
Luiz Yano is 21, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Prykarpattia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Petriak was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
8.12. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Prykarpattia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Artem Sudakov could afford to be generous.
Ivan Petriak 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.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Nobody at Prykarpattia 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.
Andrii Liashenko 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Petriak was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Vasyl Tsiutsiura. 1‑0 against Metalurh Zaporizhzhia, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 9 actions, 6.73, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Artem Sudakov on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Ahrobiznes next, and one man in the Prykarpattia dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 12 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“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 Prykarpattia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Andrii Liashenko 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Ivan Petriak 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Daniil Doleček
The dugoutIvan Pitsan has become a man the manager trusts