Marked for Kiros
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 May 2027
41 days out for Denil Maldonado after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Rubin will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market3 May 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daniil Kuznetsov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Rubin the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad3 May 2027
Kiros wants to go home
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Rubin can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Rubin training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igor Vujačić 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.
Squad3 May 2027
A falling-out at Rubin
Dmitry Kabutov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout3 May 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout3 May 2027
Nazmi Gripshi is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Market3 May 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Daniil Kuznetsov has his answer from Rubin; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout3 May 2027
Jacques Siwe has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Rubin 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Apr 2027
64 days out for Denil Maldonado after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Rubin will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Match7 Apr 2027
The cup run ends for Rubin
1‑2 against Zenit, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Market12 Apr 2027
Bogdan Jočić 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 Rubin can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Rubin may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Tempers go at Rubin
Bogdan Jočić 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
A row about effort at Rubin
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igor Vujačić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
No hiding place for Kiros
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kiros, and the manager let it.
Squad12 Apr 2027
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Edvinas Gertmonas knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market15 Mar 2027
“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 Rubin, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market15 Mar 2027
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Krylya Sovetov moved on, Aleksandar Jukić reports back to Rubin, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad15 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Rubin
Dmitry Kabutov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Igor Vujačić 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Time is catching up with Kiros
Everybody at Rubin saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 39 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Transfer targets15 Mar 2027
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Rubin will try again when the window opens; Krylya Sovetov may not be selling by then.
Squad15 Mar 2027
“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 Rubin know it.
Market15 Mar 2027
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Yegor Teslenko has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Rubin.
Market15 Mar 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market8 Mar 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rubin can pretend not to have heard.
Market8 Mar 2027
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Zenit moved on, Dmitry Kabutov reports back to Rubin, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Transfer targets8 Mar 2027
The clock did what Rostov would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Market8 Mar 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market8 Mar 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Rubin is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Igor Vujačić and Rubin agree another 2 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rubin this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Kiros wants to go home
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Rubin can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dardan Shabanhaxhaj, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market4 Jan 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rubin can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
A falling-out at Rubin
Bogdan Jočić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Kiros wants to go home
“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 Rubin know it.
Match2 Jan 2027
A bad afternoon for Rubin against Akron
0‑2 to Akron, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Aleksandar Jukić, and the manager let it.
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
Nobody left the Rubin dressing room in a hurry
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.
Market4 Jan 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout28 Dec 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad28 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rubin this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Dec 2026
A row about effort at Rubin
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igor Vujačić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Kiros is not the player he was
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 39 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Match26 Dec 2026
It finished 2‑1, and it was Dardan Shabanhaxhaj’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Rubin.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
“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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Marked 8.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
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 dugout28 Dec 2026
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Dmitri Prokofiev on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A row about effort at Rubin
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igor Vujačić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Yegor Teslenko, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Dmitri Prokofiev was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Rubin dressing room was either.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
When it matters, Kiros plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Match19 Dec 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Krylya Sovetov will be the happier side with the point.
Looking ahead21 Dec 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Nizhniy Novgorod in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Market21 Dec 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Jacques Siwe’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 10. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.86 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Veldin Hodža goes up and wins it — 7.58
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.58 for the rest of it.
Match5 Dec 2026
Still nobody has beaten Rubin
The unbeaten run reaches 8. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Match5 Dec 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Dardan Shabanhaxhaj. 3‑2 against Rostov, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Igor Vujačić 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 dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Kiros
“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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Daniil Motorin commits to Rubin for another 4 years.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Evgeny Staver named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Evgeny Staver is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match18 Nov 2026
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Daniil Motorin obliged against Rodina. 2‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Rubin.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.87, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Rubin may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Up for the corner, and Veldin Hodža delivers — 7.86
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Veldin Hodža scored, was marked 7.86, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Match21 Nov 2026
Nobody wants to play Rubin right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Igor Vujačić 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 Rubin this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces23 Nov 2026
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nazmi Gripshi, and the manager let it.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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Player ratings
Daniil Kuznetsov beats them one at a time
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The dugout
When it matters, Kiros plays
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Rubin may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Rubin
Baqtiiar Zainutdinov 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
The decline has begun for Kiros
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 38 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Rubin is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
“I watch every Rubin game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Krylya Sovetov runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Market12 Oct 2026
Bogdan Jočić is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Rubin has been clear about where Bogdan Jočić stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Yegor Teslenko, and the manager let it.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
A promise honoured at Rubin
Something was said to Baqtiiar Zainutdinov and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Bogdan Jočić knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Rubin, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Ilja Samoshnikov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Rubin needing him to play as if none of it matters.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad28 Sep 2026
“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 Rubin know it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Rubin
Bogdan Jočić 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Rubin training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igor Vujačić 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
3 matches without a goal for Rubin
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Match26 Sep 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Market28 Sep 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Aleksandar Jukić has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Rubin.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
No hiding place for Kiros
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kiros, and the manager let it.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Dmitri Prokofiev after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Aug 2026
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Rubin people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Squad10 Aug 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market10 Aug 2026
Rubin say no — this time
The offer from Nizhniy Novgorod for Alexandr Zotov was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Rubin have done the hard part with Dinamo Moscow, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nazmi Gripshi and Rubin agree another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Rubin
Anderson Arroyo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Krylya Sovetov have kept their man, and Rubin go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match8 Aug 2026
1‑2 to Spartak Moscow, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“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.