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Suddenly talking about celebrating tackles with gladiatorial grace and the prospect of swapping shirts with Erling Haaland feels rather insignificant. Maksym Talovierov, known as Maxi, is detailing the sobering reality of life since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “It’s really hard because for three years every morning I wake up and I see a lot of notifications about rockets and missiles in every city, including Kyiv, where my parents are,” the Plymouth defender says. “I text them immediately to see how they’re doing. ‘Are you in the [underground] car park? Are you in the metro?’ Because when they [Russia] are bombing and it’s dangerous, that’s where they go because they are the closest things to safe zones.”
The 24-year-old has not seen his mother, Maryna, and father, Vadym, a former professional footballer, for three and a half years. “Sometimes they might not have a connection or wifi and then it’s stressful because they don’t respond and you don’t know what’s going on. On the news it might say: ‘In this area of Kyiv, five rockets.’ But you never know exactly where.
“Yeah,” Talovierov says, taking a breath, “it’s a really hard situation. Some of our soldiers are my friends, friends of friends, parents of international teammates. They joined the army to help our country and I appreciate it a lot.”
There will be 7,800 Plymouth fans in the away end at Manchester City on Saturday evening keen to show Talovierov support in the FA Cup fifth round. He has already felt the love around the place he now calls home. He tells a story about a couple sparing him a wasted walk into the city centre to create a bank account. “About 50 metres before the bank I realised that I forgot my passport,” he says. “Some fans who recognised me and wanted to have a picture said: ‘If you need anything, we can always help you.’ So I said: ‘Guys, can you please drop me to my hotel and back because I forgot my passport?’ The man moved to the back seat: ‘Maxi, sit here in the front seat, my wife will drop you back.’ They shared a lot of stories about the history of the club and the city during these five minutes in the car.”
The ponytailed centre-back, a £1.4m buy from the Austrian club Lask, has earned cult-hero status among Plymouth supporters in the 28 days since he became the Championship club’s record signing. He completed his medical at Home Park at midnight, signed his contract at 1am and returned for training hours later. His debut came the next day in a victory against West Brom. Before his man-of-the-match performance he limbered up by doing press-ups in the tunnel and during the game he toasted perfectly timed challenges with double fist-pumps. “This match will be in my head until my last days. The following evening I was just walking around the streets and fans were screaming at me: ‘Maxi! Maxi!’ I had a hat on so I don’t even know how they realised it was me.”
There were more hulking celebrations after thwarting Luis Díaz and Kostas Tsimikas when Plymouth shocked Liverpool in the previous round. The council lit Smeaton’s Tower on Plymouth Hoe in a green hue to mark the occasion.“Sometimes I don’t remember doing it [celebrating] … then I see videos when scrolling TikTok or Instagram reels and I’m surprised: ‘Ooo, I don’t remember.’ I don’t even recognise that it’s me. I might remember the tackle but not the celebration. I really like that it comes from my soul. When the fans cheer, it just goes inside of me,” he says, slowly raising both hands towards his chest. “I don’t think about it before games: ‘When I defend, I will scream.’ No, I’m very emotional on the pitch. You never know when it will come to you.”
Another Plymouth defender, Nikola Katic, lost one of his front teeth in the heat of battle against Liverpool, though the groundsman discovered it post-match. “But I think he was still happy … we were all laughing about it. Niko is a warrior; he doesn’t worry about these things. After the game I slept a few hours because I was so tired and then all night I couldn’t sleep because of this adrenaline in my head. I think we didn’t even have enough energy to celebrate much because we were so tired. Against teams like Liverpool you have to be concentrated, focused all the time.”
Talovierov was born in Nalchik, a Russian city close to the Georgian border, where his father, also a defender, played briefly, but the family moved to Donetsk three months later and lived there until 2014, when Russia-backed separatist groups ignited conflict there. “Shakhtar moved their academy to Kyiv, and that’s why we moved to Kyiv. My parents lost their business in Donetsk because it was captured and moved to Kyiv to help me.”
Now Vadym, who watched one of his son’s games at Euro 2024 from the safety of a Kyiv underground station while Russia bombed the city, works as Talovierov’s analyst. “He is preparing a lot of information about the [opposition] strikers, my strengths, my weaknesses, good and bad things. From the age of seven, he was at every training session, he would join in the training and then just watch, analyse and on the way home from the stadium he would highlight good moments, bad moments and the things I needed to improve. Sometimes I was really angry because when you’re a teenager listening to advice you think you’re always right. Now I understand how important it was.”
A possible duel with Haaland awaits. “A few months ago I played on the PlayStation as Haaland and as them [City]. Last year I played Fifa more and I really loved him because I played a lot with him in my Ultimate Team.” For Talovierov, the ultimate inspiration is Virgil van Dijk, whom he played against when Lask faced Liverpool in the Europa League in 2023-24. After Talovierov missed out on Van Dijk’s shirt in Austria, the Dutchman promised to give him his shirt at Anfield.
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Van Dijk stayed true to his word. “One of my teammates wanted to take the jersey from Virgil but Virgil said: ‘No, no, no, because I promised Maxi,’ and he pointed at me. I was really surprised because it was two months later and imagine how many players ask Virgil for his jersey. He showed me the person I want to be in a few years, and that if I promise something, I will do it.”
Talovierov is one of several Ukraine internationals flying the flag for their country in England, including Illia Zabarnyi at Bournemouth and Oleksandr Zinchenko at Arsenal. He is good friends with Mykhailo Mudryk of Chelsea. “I know [Andriy] Shevchenko and Zinchenko created a charity match [Game4Ukraine] at Stamford Bridge. I know Mudryk helps a lot but you will not find it in newspapers. I don’t know one player who doesn’t want to help. Everyone does their maximum to help.”
Talovierov is softly spoken but makes his point. “Of course, every day is so hard and sometimes you try to find a few things to make you smile a bit. It would be easy to be serious and think about the war all the time but then you can destroy yourself mentally. Hopefully it will finish as fast as possible and we will win. It will finish how we want. Hopefully.”
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