17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Imishli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Imishli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Shamakhi will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Victor Guilherme has pre-agreed a move to Imishli, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Diogo Almeida falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Imishli know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Imishli has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
The words a physio says slowly. 25 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Imishli can pretend not to have heard.
Andrey Sinenko was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Imishli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Diogo Almeida is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Imishli know it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Imishli, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Iago Dias signs something — a contract at Imishli or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
32 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Imishli lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Imishli may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Diogo Almeida falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Imishli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Imishli will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Andrey Sinenko was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
In brief
The dugoutDiogo Almeida asks for a word with the manager
The words a physio says slowly. 39 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Imishli are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Imishli close the window on a squad of their own making
2 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Imishli is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
48 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Imishli lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Barba scored, was marked 7.71, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Imishli is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Vüsal Qənbərov has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Imishli and Gabala, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
The words a physio says slowly. 56 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
0‑4 to Araz-Nakhchivan, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
1 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
The words a physio says slowly. 64 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Shafa waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Imishli is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Imishli asked and Neftchi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Andrey Sinenko and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Diogo Almeida falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
72 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Imishli lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Imishli can pretend not to have heard.
At 33, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Imishli are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Shafa have kept their man, and Imishli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Add another name to the list: Shafa have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Hüseynali Quliyev. The answer from Imishli has not changed — yet.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Bassala Sambou is in the works
80 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Imishli lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
1‑4 to Neftchi, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Imishli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Diogo Almeida falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑4 Renat Dadashov left the room before anybody could ask which.
Beaten 4 times, with 5 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
The words a physio says slowly. 103 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Imishli can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
7.61, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Sumgayit left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Imishli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Diogo Almeida is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The words a physio says slowly. 119 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Andrey Sinenko: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Roni Lobo is living that version at Imishli, and it tends to show in the first month.
Juan Mereles and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
128 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Imishli lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Imishli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luiz Fernando was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Position 7, 11 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Imishli, another week without a signature from Barba.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Juan Mereles and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Imishli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luiz Fernando is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Juan Mereles trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Gabala in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Imishli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diogo Almeida was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Diogo Almeida trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Juan Mereles and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luiz Fernando was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑4 Renat Dadashov left the room before anybody could ask which.
Beaten 4 times, 3 saves, and an afternoon that will go on his record whether it was his fault or the defence’s. It is the quiet unfairness of the position.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Shamakhi in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Imishli, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Andrey Sinenko and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Diogo Almeida falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Imishli will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Imishli have done the hard part with Brasil de Pelotas, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Jablonec is saying, and nobody at Imishli is enjoying the guessing.
Imishli asked and Qarabag said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Renat Dadashov after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Caio Machado is in the works
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Elvinho has, at Imishli, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Central keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Andriy Shtogrin was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $360.0K. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Imishli asked and Neftchi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Agil Bayramov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Maksim Amirguliyev has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Dimitrij Dadashov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Afran Nazarov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Imishli know which stage they are at.
Imishli have gone to Neftchi with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The phone has started ringing about Tuncay Cəfərli again, and this time the name on the line is DIFAI Agsu. Imishli are listening politely and promising nothing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Imishli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Imishli have made the call to Central. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Imishli training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Diogo Almeida is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.