Marked for Maksym Melnychuk
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Yevhen Smyrnyi 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Kudrivka
Oleksandr Bieliaiev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
“I watch every Kudrivka game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Metalist runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Epicentr in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Dmytro Semenov 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 Dmytro Semenov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market12 Oct 2026
The name of Maksym Melnychuk keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Kudrivka say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Sep 2026
No end in sight to Kudrivka's wait for a win
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Kudrivka has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.17, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match19 Sep 2026
Kudrivka are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 6 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Kudrivka
Kaya Makosso and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match19 Sep 2026
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Kudrivka and Polissia, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bohdan Romaniuk is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match19 Sep 2026
Beaten 2‑4, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Transfer targets21 Sep 2026
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.
In brief
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Player ratings
Kaya Makosso ran the middle of the pitch — 6.82
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The dugout
The manager makes an example of Maksym Melnychuk
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
Kaya Makosso 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 targets7 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Karpaty have kept their man, and Kudrivka go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Kudrivka
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kostiantyn Bychek was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Kudrivka has been clear about where Valerii Rohozynskyi stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Serhii Sten 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Kudrivka are still strangers to each other
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Yevhenii Pasich is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Looking ahead7 Sep 2026
Kryvbas next, and one man in the Kudrivka dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Kudrivka, and both men came out saying it was fine.