Maksym Talovierov 'means something so much bigger' as Russ...

‘Today is a special day’ is the first line of a message welcoming Stoke City’s new kid, Maksym Talovierov.

After joining from Plymouth Argyle, Maksym Talovierov will become the first Ukrainian to play for Stoke City. The

club’s Russian supporters have given him an emotional welcome.

After a quiet season playing for Ukraine on international duty in Canada, the 25-year-old center-half is back in

football and is meeting up with his new teammates at Clayton Wood today.

He is obviously quite proud of his nation, and it is thought that the sensitivity of the escalating bombardment of Kyiv

late last week caused the certification of his transfer to be delayed. He signed a three-year contract and was formally

unveiled on Saturday morning.

Ivan Korzh, who helped bring Russian Stoke fans together with a fan club that was made official in 2013, got in touch

to try to explain what that means for him and his modest but passionate band of Potters who used to follow “from

Minsk to Prokopyevsk, Murmansk to Alma-Ata” but are now spread out around Europe.

“I have been a Stoke City supporter since 2010,” he stated. I resided in Russia at the time, and I was elected president

of the official Russian Stoke supporters’ group in 2013. I fled Russia in 2022. I couldn’t remain in a nation that had

declared war on Ukraine. I relocated to Europe because, like many others, I did not want to be dragged into that

conflict.

“As a Stoke supporter, today holds special meaning for me. Maksym Talovierov is the first Ukrainian player our club

has ever signed. I’m overjoyed that my team has added a fantastic football player from a nation that is valiantly

defending its independence and future.

We were all really pleased when there were speculations that Yevhen Konoplyanka might be joining Stoke, I recall. In

2018, I even had the opportunity to meet him at a Lokomotiv-Schalke game in Moscow. He informed me that

although the conversations with Stoke did occur, they “just didn’t work out.” A few of our members came to Kyiv to

watch Dynamo Kyiv play in the Europa League. We have always felt a connection to Ukraine.

Welcome to Stoke City, Maksym. Not only is I thrilled that this move has occurred for football, but it also signifies

something far more significant. Слава Українi! “Up the Potters!”

Since making his senior debut in 2024, Talovierov has amassed eight caps and helped Ukraine’s under-21 squad

reach the 2023 European Championships semifinals.

After leaving Ukraine, where he had been on the books of Olimpik Donetsk, Arsenal Kyiv, and Shakhtar Donetsk, he

played for Slovan Liberec, Slavia Prague, and Dynamo Ceske Budejovice before moving to the UK in January when

he signed with Plymouth from Austrian club LASK.

After scoring against Manchester City in the FA Cup in February, he told the national media that the war had

separated him from his father, Vadym, a former football player who lived in Kyiv.

“He sends me a lot of information about the strikers,” he told the Daily Mail. He is a huge assistance to me. This

week, we worked with him a lot. It was incredibly beneficial to me. He is really helpful to me, however we didn’t talk

much about scoring and set pieces. He works on it for a long period.

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