Bukovyna

Bukovyna go into the new season in the Ukrainian Premier League, back among the top flight for the first time in years after winning the First League in 2025/26. It is the club's second stint at that level; the closest it came before was sixth place in the old Vyshcha Liha, in 1992.

The road here ran through the lower tiers more often than not. Bukovyna won the Second League's Group A twice, in 1999/00 and 2009/10, and were runners-up in the First League in 1995/96. The legal entity and the name carried through unbroken from the Soviet era.

That earlier history was built in the Ukrainian SSR's Second League, where Chernivtsi won the republican title twice, in 1982 and 1988, and took the Zone West of the Soviet Second League in 1990 — a result that carried the club up to the First League, where a fifth-place finish in 1991 remained its best return before the USSR dissolved.

No player is more tied to the club than Yuriy Hiy, captain during its Soviet and early independence years, a Ukraine international, who later returned to the bench as coach. The home ground, the Bukovyna Stadium, held around 17,000 before plastic seating was fitted in 2000; capacity now stands at 12,076.

The club was founded in 1958 under the name Avanhard, and took the name Bukovyna in 1965.