Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Eldorbek Begimov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AGMK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
4 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Siavash Haghnazari 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.
“Three loans in three years. At some point a club has to decide if I am their player or their asset.” The spell at Neftchi continues; the message travels home.
“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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Eldorbek Begimov has his answer from AGMK; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 8.17 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Eldorbek Begimov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AGMK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Siavash Haghnazari 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.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AGMK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Eldorbek Begimov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AGMK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Nodir Nematov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jaloliddin Mirzaev has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Abdulla Fayzullaev 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.
20 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. AGMK lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Giorgi Papava 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 words a physio says slowly. 34 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason AGMK will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AGMK can pretend not to have heard.
The phone has started ringing about Avazbek O'lmasaliyev again, and this time the name on the line is Torpedo Moscow. AGMK are listening politely and promising nothing.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AGMK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AGMK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
AGMK asked and Jablonec said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
48 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AGMK lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 AGMK, and it is not being withdrawn.
AGMK had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Navbahor, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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 words a physio says slowly. 56 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around AGMK people have started saying his name in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AGMK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and AGMK know which stage they are at.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at AGMK. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
95 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AGMK lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AGMK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
Nobody at AGMK 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at AGMK, and both men came out saying it was fine.
102 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AGMK lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Aziz Xolmurodov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Siavash Haghnazari 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.
Nobody at AGMK 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Eldorbek Begimov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
110 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AGMK lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at AGMK is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AGMK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Siavash Haghnazari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Nobody at AGMK 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around AGMK they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abubakr-Rizo Turdialiyev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at AGMK 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.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one AGMK will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
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.
“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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
7 new faces, and AGMK 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.
“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 AGMK, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A brace, and Uroš Kojić takes the afternoon — 8.99
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Uroš Kojić provided it, and the 8.99 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Obod tried to reorganise, AGMK did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Sogdiana had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Akbar O'ktamov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AGMK the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Akbar O'ktamov has agreed terms with Navbahor for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AGMK this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Universitatea Craiova have kept their man, and AGMK go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Timur Hasanov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.