Three's a crowd for Dynamo and Shakhtar

Dynamo. Dynamo. Dynamo. Dynamo. Dynamo. Dynamo. Dynamo. Dynamo. Dynamo. Shakhtar. Dynamo. Dynamo. Shakhtar. Shakhtar. Dynamo. Ever since Tavriya Simferapol surprised everybody by winning the first title following fragmentation, Ukrainian football has been crying out for a third force and, at last, it seems as though they may have one.

"I would not be surprised," Andriy Husyn said earlier this month, "if Dnipro win the league." That may not sound like anything outrageous, but the fact that the former Dynamo Kyiv midfielder's assertion was not greeted by gales of laughter is itself telling. Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk may not win the Ukrainian title this season, but, having won six and drawn one of their opening seven games, scoring 14 and conceding three, it does at least look as though they're going to be in the mix, even if Sunday's goalless draw at home to Zakarpattya allowed Shakhtar to pull level on points at the top of the table.

Most significantly, Dnipro won 3-1 away at Dynamo, despite falling behind, and then put four past Metalurh Donetsk, who are themselves widely expected to be challenging for European qualification this season. The playmaker Serhiy Nazarenko, a footballer of sublime touch and great imagination who is habitually called into the national squad but rarely called onto the pitch by Oleh Blokhin, has been in superb form, scoring five goals already this season, four of them stroked in from outside the box.

Oleh Shelayev, a national team regular who was left out in coach Oleh Protasov's first season, is now established as a commanding presence at the back of the midfield, while the central defender Andriy Rusol and the goalkeeper Maksym Startsev complete a strong spine. The great revelation, though, has been the forward Andriy Vorobey, who had effectively been sent into exile by Mircea Lucescu at Shakhtar. Given a second chance, he has responded with three goals and performances of persistent energy that have opened the way for the Russian forward Sergey Samodin to score four of his own.

Dnipro's emergence as a genuine force has been long expected. They had seemed to be making progress under the late Yevhen Kucherevskyi. They were fourth in the league in 2003, and third in 2004, and that year they beat Hamburg and Dinamo Zagreb before going down 1-0 to Marseille in the third round of the Uefa Cup. There was a sense of stagnation as they slipped back to fourth in 2005 and, amid rumours that a number of players were suffering from what Ukrainians call "star-sickness", Kucherevskyi was replaced by Protasov. A native of Dnipropetrovsk and a star at Dnipro in the mid-80s (although he left before the 1988 title success), the former forward was a popular appointment, and he has been wise enough largely to follow his predecessor's blueprint.

Kucherevskyi, the coach who led them to the title, was suspicious of foreign players, a distrust based on his experiences in Russia with Arsenal Tula when he was sent to Brazil with a budget to sign six players, only to find on his return that his board had bought another half-dozen, deciding his signings lacked the necessary exoticism. Protasov, similarly, has largely confined himself, if not exclusively to Ukrainian players, then at least to players from the former USSR, a policy reinforced by the relative failures of the midfielders Davidson, a Brazilian, and Mladen Bartulovic, a Serbian.

Instead he has preferred to promote local talent. Dmytro Lyopa, a 19-year-old midfielder, has impressed in a series of substitute appearances, most notably in the final quarter against Dynamo and against GKS Belchatow of Poland in the Uefa Cup, when he salvaged a draw from the home leg by laying on an equaliser for Nazarenko. Although opportunities have been limited, there are high hopes too for Yevhen Shakhov, probably Ukraine's best forward at Under-18 level.

Stability of philosophy and personnel is all very well, but Dnipro have also benefited from a financial stability rare in the former Communist bloc. The club is owned by Ihor Kolomoyskyi, the founder of Pryvatbank and a dollar-billionaire listed by Forbes as the 799th-richest man in the world. He may lag some way behind the Shakhtar owner, Rinat Akhmetov (214th), and he does not go in for Akhmetov-style marquee signings, but Dnipro's budget is not that much less than Dynamo's and is arguably more wisely deployed. They will benefit too from their imminent move from their present home at the Stadium Meteor to the 33,000-capacity Dnipro Stadium, which will host games at Euro 2012.

Just as importantly, Kolomoyskyi has proved himself adept at negotiating the difficult waters of Ukrainian football politics. He has risen to be vice-president of the Football Federation of Ukraine (FFU), deputy to Hrihoriy Surkis, a former president of Dynamo and brother to Dynamo's present chairman, Ihor. That the relationship between Kolomoyskyi and the Surkises is healthy would seem to be confirmed by the fact that Dynamo's shirt sponsors are Pryvatbank. Dnipro have been involved in noticeably few refereeing controversies - either as beneficiaries or victims - in recent years, which the conspiracy theorists would have you believe is not coincidental.

Dnipro's other great strength is Protasov, a disciplinarian with a smiling face. The mood at the club is relaxed, but there are reports of draconian fines for those who step out of line. It is also an advantage that his coaching experience has come in Greece and Cyprus; there is no danger of him suffering the sort of post-Lobanovskyi hangover with which Dynamo seem perpetually to be struggling.

So, can they win it? The doubters point out that Dnipro have a history of playing well against Shakhtar and Dynamo, only to drop points against lesser sides, and Sunday's draw against Zakarpattya was perhaps an indication that old habits could be returning.

Last season they drew 14 times, often in games they had dominated. It had been hoped that the arrival of Vorobey would give them the cutting edge to overcome that, but Sunday showed just how reliant they are on Nazarenko for creativity. That may be their undoing in the end, but at the moment they lead Dynamo by nine points and appear to be Shakhtar's closest rivals. They may not win the title, but the eternal duopoly at least could be coming to an end.