Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 17 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Avangard are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Marcelo Matzuda 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Avangard training over how hard people work
MarketThe window shut and Denis Cheremisin is still in the building
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 24 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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 The request is on a desk at Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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 Avangard know it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
“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 The request is on a desk at Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
Alexey Sukharev 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Pablo Curvino 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.
The name of Vladislav Tereshkin has come up in conversations Avangard were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“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 Avangard know it.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
Marcelo Matzuda 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.
“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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Pablo Curvino 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.
Marcelo Matzuda 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.
In brief
BoardroomWages eat 202% of everything Avangard earn
Position 8 and 6 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard 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 Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
Alexey Sukharev 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Pablo Curvino 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.
10 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.
10 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Avangard can tell you which week it ends in.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
Alexey Sukharev 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.
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.
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 Vikenty Schipachev.
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.
9 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Leiva 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 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.
8 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Avangard can tell you which week it ends in.
0-4, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Marcelo Matzuda 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.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 5 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Alexey Sukharev 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 Sep 2026
Gabriel Leiva 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.
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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Leiva 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Avangard, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Kaluga? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
Alexey Titkov 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Denis Konshin
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Denis Konshin has come out of that comparison in the side, and Avangard have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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.
Marcelo Matzuda 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Avangard and Strogino, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Pablo Curvino 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Marcelo Matzuda has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The offer from Saturn for Yegor Skorobogatko 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Avangard, another week without a signature from Victor Kozyrev.