Marked for Roberto Pitio
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market28 Dec 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Age has not caught Ricardinho yet — 8.92
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.92 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market28 Dec 2026
Only the photograph left for Ilja Porokhov
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ilja Porokhov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Shinnik the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Ilja Porokhov has agreed terms with Sochi for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Ricardinho 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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match26 Dec 2026
Still nobody has beaten Shinnik
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match26 Dec 2026
A 2‑1 win over Chaika, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Wages eat 147% of everything Shinnik earn
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.
In brief
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Squad
Getting past Denis Vambolt has become the hardest job in the division
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Squad
Words at Shinnik training over how hard people work
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The dugout
The manager makes an example of Roberto Pitio
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market26 Oct 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Shinnik can pretend not to have heard.
Match24 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Shinnik
4 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.
Match24 Oct 2026
The goals have deserted Shinnik
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Shinnik can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Ricardinho in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shinnik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Cameron Lancaster, and the manager let it.
Squad26 Oct 2026
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Shinnik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denis Vambolt 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Shinnik are still strangers to each other
14 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 dugout26 Oct 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Prokhor Antonov after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market19 Oct 2026
“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 Shinnik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad19 Oct 2026
“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; Shinnik are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad19 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Shinnik
Ricardinho and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Shinnik
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleg Lanin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match17 Oct 2026
The goals have deserted Shinnik
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Shinnik can tell you which week it ends in.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Roberto Pitio
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Loan watch19 Oct 2026
“I watch every Shinnik game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at OFK Beograd runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Market19 Oct 2026
Vadim Karpov is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Shinnik has been clear about where Vadim Karpov stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Prokhor Antonov chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Shinnik
Ricardinho 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Oleg Lanin 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.
Match10 Oct 2026
Torpedo Moscow left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Artem Golubev, and the manager let it.
The dugout12 Oct 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 0‑1 Prokhor Antonov left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Yaroslav Arbuzov is on it.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Ural next, and one man in the Shinnik dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 11. 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Shinnik
Ricardinho and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Shinnik
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleg Lanin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets21 Sep 2026
Shinnik asked and Volga said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match19 Sep 2026
SKA Khabarovsk made Shinnik work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Albek Gongapshev was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Market21 Sep 2026
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jacopo Busi and Shinnik agree another 3 years.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Prokhor Antonov on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Looking ahead21 Sep 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Artem Abramov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Shinnik needing him to play as if none of it matters.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market24 Aug 2026
Artem Abramov hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Shinnik can pretend not to have heard.
Market24 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Chelyabinsk have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Denis Mironov. The answer from Shinnik has not changed — yet.
Match22 Aug 2026
No end in sight to Shinnik's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Shinnik has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Shinnik
Ricardinho and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Match22 Aug 2026
A point taken on 85 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Roberto Pitio, and the manager let it.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Krasnodar have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Partizan have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Aug 2026
A muscle injury and 14 days out for Yaroslav Arbuzov
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Shinnik will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Shinnik
Ricardinho 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$20.0K on the table at Volna. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Denis Mironov
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Match15 Aug 2026
A bad afternoon for Shinnik against Fakel
0‑1 to Fakel, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Prokhor Antonov after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Partizan: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.