Marked for Bryan Castillo
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match23 Oct 2027
Inhulets will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Oleksandriya were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.54 for the rest of it.
Match23 Oct 2027
Nobody wants to play Oleksandriya right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad25 Oct 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Oleksandriya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.27, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.27, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
A performance of 8.21 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
No hiding place for Edson
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Edson, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad4 Oct 2027
30 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Oleksandriya lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match2 Oct 2027
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Metalurh Zaporizhzhia, and it could have been more.
Market4 Oct 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Oleksandriya, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match4 Oct 2027
Oleksandriya are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 20 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Oleksandr Pikhalionok 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.
Match2 Oct 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Oleksandriya did not have in the autumn.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at Oleksandriya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edson 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.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
A performance of 8.13 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad27 Sep 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Abdallah Aberkane
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Oleksandriya lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market27 Sep 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Oleksandriya is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad27 Sep 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Andrii Khoma commits to Oleksandriya for another 4 years.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Ninety minutes of Bryan Castillo at his very best
Marked 8.29. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Oleksandriya.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
A performance of 8.15 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad27 Sep 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Oleksandriya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad13 Sep 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Abdallah Aberkane
53 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Oleksandriya lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market13 Sep 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Dynamo Kyiv waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Oleksandriya is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The terraces13 Sep 2027
The mood at Oleksandriya has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Match11 Sep 2027
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Market13 Sep 2027
Jota Pereira hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Oleksandriya can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
A brace, and Bryan Castillo takes the afternoon — 8.90
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Bryan Castillo provided it, and the 8.90 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Boardroom13 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 24 signed and 24 gone
That is the business done at Oleksandriya until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Market13 Sep 2027
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Oleksandriya heard it as anything else.
Match11 Sep 2027
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad30 Aug 2027
Abdallah Aberkane damages knee ligaments — 69 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 69 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.
Match25 Aug 2027
Prykarpattia are out and Oleksandriya go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Market30 Aug 2027
“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.
Market30 Aug 2027
The offer from Kolos for Oleksandr Safronov was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market30 Aug 2027
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Taras Dmytruk had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The dugout30 Aug 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market30 Aug 2027
Dynamo Kyiv pay $2.7M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad30 Aug 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Oleksandriya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Aug 2027
Abdallah Aberkane damages knee ligaments — 96 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 96 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.
Market9 Aug 2027
“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.
The dugout9 Aug 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Match7 Aug 2027
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 86th, and Nyva spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Market9 Aug 2027
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Victoriia Sumy had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Oleksandriya know it.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Fernando Henrique 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.
Market9 Aug 2027
The name of Dmytro Myshniov has come up in conversations Oleksandriya were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Match7 Aug 2027
Three points for Oleksandriya, 1‑0 the final word against Nyva in a contest settled by the finer margins.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces19 Jul 2027
Supporters organise against the Oleksandriya board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Abdallah Aberkane damages knee ligaments — 119 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 119 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.
Market19 Jul 2027
Jhonnatan puts it in writing
“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 Oleksandriya, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market19 Jul 2027
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Oleksandr Pikhalionok 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.
Market19 Jul 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Oleksandriya have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Fernando Henrique 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.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
Oleksandriya asked and Shakhtar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market19 Jul 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Denys Sliusar has his answer from Oleksandriya; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Jul 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Abdallah Aberkane
135 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Oleksandriya lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom5 Jul 2027
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
Market5 Jul 2027
“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 targets5 Jul 2027
$390.0K settles it between the clubs for Maksym Tatarenko
Chernihiv have accepted the money. What Oleksandriya do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Squad5 Jul 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Oleksandriya are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Oleksandr Safronov 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Fernando Henrique 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.
Market5 Jul 2027
Karpaty paid $35.0K and Oleksandriya took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Arka Gdynia have kept their man, and Oleksandriya go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces21 Jun 2027
Anger at Oleksandriya spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Market21 Jun 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Oleksandriya people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market21 Jun 2027
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Chijioke Aniagboso had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
Oleksandriya and Livyi Bereh have settled on $900.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Market21 Jun 2027
The offer from Prykarpattia for Mateus Amaral was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market21 Jun 2027
“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 targets21 Jun 2027
The deal with UCSA is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Roman Savchenko is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Fernando Henrique 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings14 Jun 2027
Robert Hernández, 33, rolls back the years — 8.05
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.05 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market14 Jun 2027
The bid was some way short and Carabobo did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market14 Jun 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Carabobo can pretend not to have heard.
Squad14 Jun 2027
The medical room confirms 36 days on the sidelines for Lucas Bruera, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad14 Jun 2027
A row about effort at Carabobo
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ezequiel Neira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Leonardo Aponte 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.
Match12 Jun 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Bryan Castillo. 2‑0 against Yaracuyanos, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings14 Jun 2027
Carlos Sosa beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 19. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Market14 Jun 2027
Add another name to the list: Borneo have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Kevin Ojeda. The answer from Carabobo has not changed — yet.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Jun 2027
“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 Oleksandriya, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market14 Jun 2027
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Oleksandriya hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad14 Jun 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Oleksandriya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Oleksandriya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fernando Henrique 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.
Boardroom14 Jun 2027
13 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Market14 Jun 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Dmytro Rebrov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market14 Jun 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ruslan Sobol has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
Something was said to Papa Ndiaga Yade and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout14 Jun 2027
Hussayn Touati knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Oleksandriya, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout24 May 2027
Jonathan Bilbao: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Carabobo have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad24 May 2027
Darwin Machís 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 May 2027
A row about effort at Carabobo
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ezequiel Neira was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match22 May 2027
Bryan Castillo scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Monagas, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
The dugout24 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Leonardo Aponte, and the manager let it.
The dugout24 May 2027
Ezequiel Neira is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The dugout24 May 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Fernando Murillo left the room before anybody could ask which.
Boardroom24 May 2027
Carabobo counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Carabobo now.
Player ratings24 May 2027
Marked 4.74. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces24 May 2027
Supporters organise against the Oleksandriya board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Squad24 May 2027
Oleksandr Pikhalionok 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.
Squad24 May 2027
Fernando Henrique 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 May 2027
“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.
Loan watch24 May 2027
The goals keep arriving from Bryan Castillo’s exile
7 goals in 15 games at Carabobo — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Oleksandriya updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The dugout24 May 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Artem Liehostaiev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market24 May 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Jota Pereira’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad24 May 2027
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Oleksandriya will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
Loan watch24 May 2027
4 shut-outs in 9 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Chijioke Aniagboso has been having a lot of them.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 May 2027
17 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
The dugout17 May 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad17 May 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Oleksandriya this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 May 2027
Fernando Henrique 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.
Market17 May 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Oleksandriya know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Loan watch17 May 2027
14 appearances away from home and 6 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
The dugout17 May 2027
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout17 May 2027
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.
Squad17 May 2027
Mateus Amaral is starting to look at home
The language is arriving, the jokes are landing, and there is somebody at the next peg to talk to. None of it appears in a scouting report and all of it shows up on the pitch.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 May 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Carabobo can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout10 May 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market10 May 2027
Denilson Ojeda has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Carabobo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad10 May 2027
A falling-out at Carabobo
Darwin Machís and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad10 May 2027
Robert Hernández 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.
Match8 May 2027
Trujillanos left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad10 May 2027
50 goals in these colours now, every one of them somebody’s memory. There is a supporter in the stand who can tell you where he was for most of them.
Squad10 May 2027
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
The dugout10 May 2027
The manager makes an example of Ángelo Lucena
“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
Upbeat
Player ratings3 May 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.80, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match3 May 2027
Carabobo up to position 3
26 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad3 May 2027
A one-man rearguard from Lucas Bruera
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Maurice Cova, 34, rolls back the years — 8.20
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.20 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market3 May 2027
Dimas Meza hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Carabobo can pretend not to have heard.
Match1 May 2027
Nobody wants to play Carabobo right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Match1 May 2027
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Carabobo. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Squad3 May 2027
Ezequiel Neira 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.
Match1 May 2027
Three points for Carabobo, 3‑1 the final word against Zamora in a contest settled by the finer margins.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom3 May 2027
The scrutiny sharpens at Oleksandriya
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Oleksandriya is running low.
Boardroom3 May 2027
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Nazariy Kravets has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The dugout3 May 2027
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Oleksandriya have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad3 May 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Oleksandriya know it.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Oleksandriya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fernando Henrique 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 dugout3 May 2027
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Oleksandr Pikhalionok is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
Boardroom3 May 2027
$2.5M taken back off the Oleksandriya table
What was available in the summer has quietly gone. Upstairs nobody will call it a change of ambition; downstairs nobody will call it anything else.
Loan watch3 May 2027
12 appearances at Carabobo and the goals keep coming. Oleksandriya are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
Squad3 May 2027
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces26 Apr 2027
Supporters organise against the Oleksandriya board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Oleksiy Khoblenko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Oleksandriya training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fernando Henrique 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 dugout26 Apr 2027
“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.
Market26 Apr 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Jota Pereira’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Loan watch26 Apr 2027
9 appearances at Stal Mielec and the goals have stopped going in. Oleksandriya lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
Oleh Kudryk asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Loan watch26 Apr 2027
The goals keep arriving from Bryan Castillo’s exile
3 goals in 11 games at Carabobo — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Oleksandriya updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Dmytro Myshniov has written the date down.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words exchanged at Carabobo
Leonardo Aponte 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.
Match17 Apr 2027
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Carabobo. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Match17 Apr 2027
A 1‑0 win over Bolívar, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Ángelo Lucena 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 ratings19 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
The afternoon belonged to Carlos Sosa
A mark of 7.98, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Fernando Murillo kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
“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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
One booking too many, and a game watched from the stand. Carabobo lose him for the most avoidable reason in the sport.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Feb 2027
A fracture rules Denilson Ojeda out for 89 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Carabobo will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market8 Feb 2027
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Loureins Martínez had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ezequiel Neira and Carabobo agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A falling-out at Carabobo
Darwin Machís and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A move Gianluca Giménez would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Gianluca Giménez is living that version at Carabobo, and it tends to show in the first month.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Marked 7.68 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Carabobo had the best player on the pitch.
Market8 Feb 2027
He is 20, and nobody at Carabobo signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
“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 dugout8 Feb 2027
Carlos Sosa is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market30 Nov 2026
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Carabobo can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Carabobo
Leonardo Aponte 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Ezequiel Neira 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Carabobo know it.
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
Dimas Meza asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.