Truncated chaos

Three figures took centre stage in a round 11 cut short by two and a half matches. Alisson Santana came off the bench to score twice and send his Shakhtar top. Karpaty striker Yan Kostenko scored a hat-trick, a rarity in our parts. Yet for all those serious feats, both were overshadowed by Andrii Yarmolenko, the record-holder of all time.

In Kryvyi Rih the veteran played two roles – hero and villain. With one foot the Dynamo captain made the evening at the Hirnyk stadium historic; with the other he ruined his own gala. With his toxic behaviour Yarmolenko provoked two mass brawls and did everything to make sure his record 125th goal in the Ukrainian league left a bad smell. Not for its quality, but for what surrounded it. “I didn’t quite control my emotions,” Yarmolenko would say after the match. Not as an excuse, but in his own defence. There was not a hint of regret in his tone.

First came the triumph: a perfect assist onto Ponomarenko’s head and a cool penalty that wrote the 37-year-old’s name into history for good as the league’s outright top scorer. But greatness gave way to eclipse in an instant. Instead of running the game as a living legend, Yarmolenko began churning out provocations. The mass scuffles that flared up out of nothing were the direct result of the aggression of Dynamo’s leader, who had lost all control of his emotions.

The logical and shameful finale of this madness was a wild foul on Giovani at the end of the first half – from behind, a full swing of the boot at his legs. Exactly as he scythed down his close friend Taras Stepanenko ten years ago. This was not just a red card but a red card with knobs on. Yarmolenko left his team to sweat it out with ten men and, for good measure, put paid to the festive mood around a historic record.

Is this something chronic at Dynamo, passed on through the air? In the recent cup tie with Shakhtar it was Mykhavko who swung his way to a sending-off. But what can you ask of a 19-year-old? Besides, he apologised to his team-mates and the fans. How, then, are we to understand the behaviour of Yarmolenko, who has long demanded to be addressed by his name and patronymic? A man who lays claim to the role of wise mentor and living legend sank to the level of a common provocateur. And without a word of remorse.

Congratulations on the record – but not heartfelt ones. Great players should remain great until their last second on the pitch, not turn their crowning triumph into a cheap settling of scores with the man who had fouled Tymchyk. “I wanted to play hard but overdid it” – those words of Yarmolenko’s sound strange, to say the least. Lawyers and psychologists recommend keeping quiet in stressful situations...

A league table gnawed away by mass postponements does not give the full picture. But even in poor light it is clear that Kudrivka, Kryvbas and Veres are heading for the abyss. They are not only losing but playing badly, too. Then again, it is not just them, nor even Chornomorets, who whipped up a storm in Rivne in the truncated round: more than half the teams in the league are in danger of the drop.