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.
Ben Yagan 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Yegor Baburin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Akron 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.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Akron that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
Dinamo Stavropol will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Danil Khromov has pre-agreed a move to Akron, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilya Gubarevich 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.
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 Vitaly Gudiev.
Level with 89 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Akron had all but put away. Sochi will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout25 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.” Evgeny Putin chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
The phone has started ringing about Roberto Fernández again, and this time the name on the line is Universidad de Chile. Akron are listening politely and promising nothing.
Roberto Fernández 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.
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Yegor Baburin
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Evgeny Putin on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Roberto Fernández 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 Khetag Khosonov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Akron told Dato Chertkoev something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Akron, and both men came out saying it was fine.
7 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.
1 for Stefan Lončar, marked 7.66, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Karlen Hovhannisyan is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Minsk have kept their man, and Akron go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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 dugout21 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 1‑3 Evgeny Putin left the room before anybody could ask which.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Yegor Baburin
Akron had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Tigres, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Akron asked and Lokomotiv Moscow said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khetag Khosonov 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Akron, another week without a signature from Yegor Baburin.
Squad7 Sep 2026
10 new faces, and Akron are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Paulo Vitor is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Yegor Baburin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Akron had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Skonto, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The offer went to Dinamo Moscow 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.
Roberto Fernández 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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Vladislav Tereshkin has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Akron have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.