It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Timur Suleimanov again, and this time the name on the line is CSKA Moscow. Rostov are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Words at Rostov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammad Mohebi 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.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Ivan Komarov’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Rostov.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Ivan Komarov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.52. 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Rostov know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ruslan Pichienko is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Victor Melekhin 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.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
The words a physio says slowly. 36 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.
Position 3, 50 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Dmitry Chistyakov 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Rostov know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
Marked 5.73. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Mohammad Mohebi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.52. 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.
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.
The offer from Maccabi Haifa for Yegor Golenkov 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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Rostov will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
Marked 8.07 — 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Yegor Golenkov provided it, and the 8.28 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The name of Yegor Golenkov has come up in conversations Rostov were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
34 appearances across 8 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.
Dmitry Chistyakov 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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Dinamo Makhachkala tried to reorganise, Rostov did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at Rostov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dennis Hadžikadunić 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.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 23 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A 1‑0 win over Dinamo Moscow, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
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.
Dmitry Chistyakov 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.
At 23 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.
Marked 8.07 — 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.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Ivan Komarov's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Rostov know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Dmitry Chistyakov 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 crowd waited for a goal that never came. Krylya Sovetov defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Dmitry Chistyakov 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.
18 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Rustam Yatimov signs something — a contract at Rostov or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Rostov can tell you which week it ends in.
Jhonathan Caicedo 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.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Rustam Yatimov signs something — a contract at Rostov or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rostov can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Rostov did not have in the autumn.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Words at Rostov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dennis Hadžikadunić 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.
Marked 8.74 — 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.
“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 Rostov, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Al Jazira for Timur Suleimanov 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Yury Koledin 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Rostov, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Rostov will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Ronaldo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.36. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Rostov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jay Enem 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. German Ignatov has come out of that comparison in the side, and Rostov have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ivan Komarov signs something — a contract at Rostov or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Yury Koledin 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Rostov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Timur Suleimanov 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.
“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 Rostov, and it is not being withdrawn.
Dmitry Chistyakov 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.