Avid fans will say that the Lviv Carpathians never disappeared, they just went through a period of turbulence. Let it be so: the very fact that once a team with that name won championship medals and played in the Europa League group, and then languished in the lower divisions for several years. Actually, the current club is a successor, and not the same legal entity, and it still plays in the lower division. However, it looks very likely that the brand will return to its usual high level for the first time in many years.
Why will he come back if it’s a different club? Yes, because everything has been preserved: : name, emblem, and even Miron Markevich returned, with whom coaching one of the most successful periods in the history of the Carpathians is associated. Such similarity with another legal entity has even led to the fact that football authorities have hinted: if you want the status of continuing traditions, please pay off the debts of your predecessors. Lviv residents, unlike many of their colleagues, agreed with the fairness of this approach and promised to do everything in the best possible way.
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Unsinkable brand
In Ukraine, over the past ten years, many football clubs have disappeared without a trace or fallen into a deep quagmire, including even Dnepr, which managed to make it to the LE finals before the fall. But the complete disappearance of the Carpathians was still difficult to believe: the club cannot boast of serious trophies, but in terms of importance it is approximately comparable to the level of the national team for its region – this is something more than a team from one city.
The leapfrog of legal entities, which in recent years bore this name, did not prevent them from pulling off a very interesting trick – the original emblem and brand were at one time officially “gifted” to the fans. Thanks to this, the new club, wishing to be associated with its eminent predecessor and be proud of its history, must pay only its football debts – and cannot be payment of other, non-football debts of the previous owner of the team with the same name.
Perhaps, at the first stage, this was the main victory for those who dreamed of reviving the club. The native emblem helped to attract both fans and investors to the new Carpathians. Miron Markevich, whose coaching fame began here, is confident that he has returned home, and fans believe that the coach, who made great noise with Metalist and Dnepr, will achieve success again.
Prospects and expectations
In Group A of the First League, Carpathians actually met no resistance – one defeat and three draws in 18 matches allowed them to score almost one and a half times more points than their nearest opponent. But the format is such that for a promotion in class you will also have to butt heads with the best teams of subgroup B, and there are more worthy competitors there. Another thing is that in the overall standings the Lviv team is first, but to gain direct access to the UPL they can take second place. The third and fourth positions also leave chances for success, but then you will have to play in the play-offs.
Experts have no doubt that Carpathians will be strong enough to reach the UPL at the end of the 23/24 season, even without play-offs. However, the current squad, very strong by the standards of the First League, will be whipping boys in the elite, and without transfers, even simply maintaining a residence permit will be a good achievement.
The club understands this and is working for the future. Markevich, both in Metalist and in Dnepr, showed himself not so much as a motivator or tactical geek, but as a manager capable of working with the breeders. While Shakhtar wasted money, Miron Bogdanovich, together with Krasnikov, found unknown Latin Americans, bought them for pennies and skillfully adapted them into game formations. The owners of the Carpathians did not find bottomless pockets, so they will try to implement the proven strategy here too.
We need to work with transfers for the future ahead of time, because in the winter Carpathians strengthened themselves not so much with football players, but with Gleb Kornienko. The scout has proven himself by working at Shakhtar and Dnepr-1; he is directly related to PASS, which is considered an advanced school of sports analytics. It is he who is credited with the discovery of such talents as Dodo or Manor Solomon.
Considering his age, there is no doubt: this is Markevich’s last big project. If you don’t slam the door at last, you will have to retire as a person who has simply outlived his usefulness. The chosen strategy for the development of the Carpathians will not work instantly, and the Lviv residents are unlikely to be able to become a sensation like Polissya next season. But if the work of the mechanism can be perfected, in the next few years we will receive a new force in Ukrainian football, which, at a minimum, will constantly impose a fight for European Cup qualifications.
