Canada | Far west of the Carpathians, Ukraine unites (w/ multimedia)

Toronto, Jun 9 | At any given time, an uncountable number of football universes exist in parallel. Such was the case in late May when Ukraine United and Shakhtar FC faced each other in a friendly match, not in the motherland, but on an artificial pitch at the 25-acre Ontario Soccer Centre.

Ukraine | Near Chernobyl, the ‘football forest’ designed to radiate life

Pripyat, Ukraine, Apr 29 | Twenty-two years ago, more than 1,000 buses commandeered from Kyiv rumbled north toward this company town to evacuate its 50,000 residents. By sunset on 27 Apr 1986, as Chernobyl reactor no. 4 burned, in one soldier’s recollection, like a “beautiful blue fire,” the town was empty.

Left behind in the silence: a newly built football stadium sitting just to the north of a bright yellow Ferris wheel, a gift from Soviet authorities in commemoration of the upcoming May Day holiday.

Internet | ‘Liveblogging’ Dnipro Dnipropetrovs’k v. Dynamo Kyiv

We have covered the revival of the Ukrainian championship—back after winter break—and the weekend’s top fixture, second-place Dnipro Dnipropetrovs’k (43 points) hosting fourth-place Dynamo Kyiv (39). (Mar 2)

Ukraine | Coal mining, football and other former Soviet spheres of influence

Within the textured, contested, sad depths of Ukrainian history, few political gestures go unexegeted in a Talmudic-like zeal for obscure associations and hidden meaning. Such occurred following prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s Dec 23 visit to perennially troubled Zasyadko mine in eastern Donetsk, where 101 coal miners died in a Nov 18 explosion. Her comments stirred memories of past mining disasters and of the wheelchairs that regularly circled the Shakhtar Donetsk football ground (see also 26 Dec 04.) (Dec 28)

Women’s football | 5,624 miles, 7 goals, 2 Portlands and 1 mole (U.S. v. Ukraine)

Portland, Oregon, Sept 2 | U.S. Soccer Federation officials in 2005 improvised to fill out a slate of impromptu summer friendlies. One of those was a game against Ukraine, assisted on its visit by a West Coast–based expatriate known as “the mole.”

In the end, they opted for Christmas Orange

Kiev, Ukraine, Dec 28 | Football has been part of the upheavals contested in an election following the “Orange Revolution” of Nov 04.