Marked for Rubens
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match22 Aug 2026
The longest week starts now for Dinamo Moscow
Beaten 1‑2 by Spartak Moscow in the one fixture that is never just a fixture. Work, school, the corner shop — there will be no getting away from this one.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 36. 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Olympique de Marseille paid $14.4M and Dinamo Moscow took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The clubs have shaken hands with Rubin; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Konstantin Tyukavin has gone, the accounts have $14.4M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Lokomotiv Moscow, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Dinamo Moscow asked and Rubin said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Rubens 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match15 Aug 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Rostov, and it could have been more.
Market17 Aug 2026
Zenit come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Dinamo Moscow did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market17 Aug 2026
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Chaika waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Dinamo Moscow is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market17 Aug 2026
Dinamo Moscow spend $5.6M to raise the standard
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $5.6M has been paid because Maksim Samorodov is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Dinamo Moscow asked and Akhmat Grozny said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
No deal for Ilja Agapov at that price
Dinamo Moscow offered $970.0K; Ufa said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Rubens 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 Dinamo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Maksim Samorodov from Akhmat Grozny for $5.6M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Maxim Osipenko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
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Player ratings
One of those days for Juan Cáceres
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Player ratings
Bitello in the eights
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Player ratings
One of those days for Rubens
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$5.6M on the table at Akhmat Grozny. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Market10 Aug 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Kurban Rasulov had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Transfer targets10 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer from Zenit for Luis Chávez 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
The offer went to Ufa this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Market10 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Dinamo Moscow heard it as anything else.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Bitello signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Bitello and Dinamo Moscow agree another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Rubens 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The name of Baqtiiar Zainutdinov has come up in conversations Dinamo Moscow were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer from Tusker for Ilya Gubarevich 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Igor Leschuk has been here 14 seasons
56 appearances across 14 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Bitello 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 Dinamo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Dinamo Moscow can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Dinamo Moscow have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Andrey Lunev commits to Dinamo Moscow for another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rubens was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match1 Aug 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.