The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Chaika will replay every second of the added time for a week.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Sochi keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.90 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftekhimik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Neftekhimik asked and Defensores Unidos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Neftekhimik can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Position 16 and 24 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“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 The request is on a desk at Neftekhimik, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Lokomotiv Moscow keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Neftekhimik has been clear about where Ivan Markelov stands, which is more than many ever get.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Alexei Kovalev 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.
8 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.
Vitaly Shakhov 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.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 6.36, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Cleitinho.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandr Kakhidze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
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.” Andrei Putin chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Neftekhimik know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Andrei Putin to a room that had heard them before.
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.
36 goals in 22 games at Amkar — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Neftekhimik updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Neftekhimik can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“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; Neftekhimik are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Marked 7.82. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 15 combined actions and a mark of 6.96, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Marat Sitdikov 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.
Marat Sitdikov 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.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
10 combined actions and 6.79. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
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 no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Yakov Pluzhnikov 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Andrei Putin after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 9 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Sultan Djamilov 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.
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 dugout7 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Andrei Putin to a room that had heard them before.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Neftekhimik told Kirill Moiseev something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Vitaly Shakhov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
172% of the income goes out in wages at Neftekhimik
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.
A 1‑1 draw with Torpedo Moscow leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Andrei Putin was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Neftekhimik dressing room was either.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vitaly Shakhov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
Looking aheadA test against the best for Neftekhimik
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Maxim Shorkin
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandr Kakhidze was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
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.
Marat Sitdikov 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Yegor Butusov 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. Evgeny Spiridonov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout9 Nov 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.” Andrei Putin chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Serif Berbic 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.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftekhimik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
13 goals in 9 games at Amkar — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Neftekhimik updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Stanislav Puzanov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Cleitinho
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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 NK Krka waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Neftekhimik is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Rashid Magomedov reports back to Neftekhimik with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 19 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Neftekhimik had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Ujpest, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Serif Berbic 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rosario Central have kept their man, and Neftekhimik go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Neftekhimik lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Vitaly Shakhov 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Neftekhimik and Yenisey in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Neftekhimik asked and Radnicki Nis said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Neftekhimik are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Neftekhimik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandr Kakhidze 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.