Marked for Mikhail Volkov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Daniil Utkin pops up at the right end — 7.54
7.54, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Market15 Feb 2027
The chase for Daniil Gurchenko ended with $340.0K changing hands and Spartak Tambov out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Sergiu Bancu 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 Torpedo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Torpedo Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bojan Roganović 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
The team sheet said everything about Sergiu Bancu
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 Sergiu Bancu.
Market15 Feb 2027
Shinnik are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Torpedo Moscow will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Sadyg Bagiev gets it from the manager
“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.
Match13 Feb 2027
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Market15 Feb 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Torpedo Moscow know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market1 Feb 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Torpedo Moscow can pretend not to have heard.
Market1 Feb 2027
Sokol come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Torpedo Moscow did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Sergiu Bancu 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 Torpedo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Astrakhan will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Semyon Radostev has pre-agreed a move to Torpedo Moscow, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Rostislav Soldatenko, and the manager let it.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Torpedo Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bojan Roganović 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.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
7.53, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Torpedo Moscow had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Match30 Jan 2027
A 1‑1 draw with Volga leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match21 Nov 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 19 matches without defeat is a foundation Torpedo Moscow did not have in the autumn.
Squad23 Nov 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Mikhail Volkov: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match18 Nov 2026
A 0‑0 win over SKA Khabarovsk, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match23 Nov 2026
29 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Match21 Nov 2026
Torpedo Moscow make home a hard place to visit
12 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Sergiu Bancu 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 Torpedo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Sergiu Bancu gets it from the manager
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
Daniil Utkin breaks a bone — 19 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Mikhail Volkov decides it from twelve yards
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Match30 Sep 2026
A 0‑0 win over Avangard, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match3 Oct 2026
The 88th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Vladislav Shitov decided nobody was going anywhere. Volga had no time left to answer.
Match3 Oct 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 11 matches without defeat is a foundation Torpedo Moscow did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Sergiu Bancu 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 184% of everything Torpedo Moscow earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The terraces5 Oct 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
Daniil Utkin breaks a bone — 33 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 33 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match19 Sep 2026
The unbeaten run reaches 8. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Mario Ćurić 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
The manager makes an example of Sergiu Bancu
“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.
Market21 Sep 2026
Add another name to the list: Shinnik have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mikhail Volkov. The answer from Torpedo Moscow has not changed — yet.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Kirill Gotsuk'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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The terraces7 Sep 2026
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Dmitry Tsypchenko was one of the reasons people came, and $1.9M does not replace that by itself.
Market7 Sep 2026
The offer from Sokol for Mikhail Volkov 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Baltika pay $1.9M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 24, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Sergiu Bancu 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Torpedo Moscow did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Vladislav Shitov did the work nobody counts — 6.84
13 combined actions and 6.84. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Match5 Sep 2026
A 1‑0 win over Chaika, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Alexis Coman 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.