Marked for Maksym Protsiv
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad4 Jan 2027
80 days out for Vasyl Tsiutsiura after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Prykarpattia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 27. 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.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Prykarpattia may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Vasyl Frantsuz and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Lucas Ferreira 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Yevhen Bespalko and Prykarpattia agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
Artem Bezus: “We have to be better”
“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.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
The chances came and went for Jhonnatan
13 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Match2 Jan 2027
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Metalurh Zaporizhzhia will be the happier side with the point.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 33. 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Prykarpattia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Ferreira 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Andrii Bobynets 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.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
Wages eat 189% of everything Prykarpattia earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Match28 Nov 2026
Chernihiv made Prykarpattia work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Marked 7.95. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Artem Bezus could afford to be generous.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Maksym Protsiv
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 17 in, 0 out at Prykarpattia
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 17 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market14 Sep 2026
Ivan Pitsan has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Prykarpattia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Prykarpattia asked and Zaglebie said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.50, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Jhonnatan 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 ratings14 Sep 2026
Vasyl Tsiutsiura was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Prykarpattia hit back inside 4 minutes
UCSA held the lead for 4 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Prykarpattia answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
Match12 Sep 2026
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
In brief
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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The dugout
The manager makes an example of Ivan Pitsan
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The dugout
Vasyl Frantsuz gets picked when it counts
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
“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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Metalist is saying, and nobody at Prykarpattia is enjoying the guessing.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Oleksandr Zhmuida 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 targets24 Aug 2026
Zaglebie have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Match22 Aug 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Probiy leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Ruslan Buriak
“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 dugout24 Aug 2026
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 Bezus chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Maksym Protsiv 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.