Metal Kharkiv

Yevhen Krasnikov spent years as sporting director of the Kharkiv club that went under in 2016, and in the autumn of 2019 he put a new one together in the same city, under the plainer name Metal. The registration date was 10 October 2019. Legally it inherits nothing from the 1925 club, but in 2021 the Ukrainian Association of Football signed off on the use of the old name and badge, and Metal became Metalist. Oleksandr Yaroslavskyi, who had owned the original, served as president from 2021 to 2025.

The first promotion came quickly: the 2020/21 Second League, Group B, won under the old name, then a season in the First League that ended in relegation straight back down.

Oleksandr Kucher took charge in 2020 and stayed until 2022 — he had captained the historic Metalist, which made the appointment read less like a hire than a continuation. Ruslan Fomin played and coached at the same time, and wore the armband.

Home matches are played at the Avanhard stadium in Uzhhorod, several hundred kilometres west of Kharkiv. In the Metal years the team used the Sonyachnyi ground in Kharkiv itself, which held 4,924.

The Kharkiv derby against FC Kharkiv, the former Metalist 1925, carries the awkward question of which club the city belongs to; both have claim on the Metalist stadium, and the history between them adds an edge.