Marked for Ivan Migunov
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market28 Dec 2026
Platon Mamonov has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Volna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at Volna
Kirill Bogdanets 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.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Wages eat 187% of everything Volna 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Alexandr Popovich 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.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
“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.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
Maxim Gavrilov knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Volna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market28 Dec 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Ivan Migunov’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad28 Dec 2026
“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 Volna will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Market28 Dec 2026
6 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Volna money.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match28 Nov 2026
No mercy from Volna
KDV Tomsk will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Volna were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
A brace, and Gocha Gogrichiani takes the afternoon — 9.29
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gocha Gogrichiani provided it, and the 9.29 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.59, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match28 Nov 2026
Volna cannot stop winning
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Market30 Nov 2026
Only the photograph left for Platon Mamonov
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Platon Mamonov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Volna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Tempers go at Volna
Ivan Savitskiy 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.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
Wages eat 196% of everything Volna 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 dugout30 Nov 2026
Ivan Migunov 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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Marked 8.02 — 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Market2 Nov 2026
Only the photograph left for Platon Mamonov
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Platon Mamonov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Volna the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match31 Oct 2026
Volna come up short against Ural 2
Ural 2 left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Wages eat 196% of everything Volna 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 dugout2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Ivan Migunov
“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.
Match31 Oct 2026
The run is over for Volna
4 matches without defeat, and then Ural 2. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Volna
Alexandr Popovich 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Volna have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Danil Nikolaev to a room that had heard them before.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kirill Bogdanets
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Volna lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market14 Sep 2026
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Volna have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Window shuts: 10 in, 4 out at Volna
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 10 arrived, 4 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
Volna asked and Rodina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market14 Sep 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Nikolai Zaytsev is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
Ivan Migunov 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.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
The window shuts on the Pavel Golubkov deal
Volna ran out of time with Rodina. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Volna
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandr Popovich was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Looking ahead14 Sep 2026
A test against the best for Volna
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Akron 2.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Sep 2026
32 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Volna lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market7 Sep 2026
“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 Volna, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market7 Sep 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Pavel Popov 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 Volna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Volna asked and Rodina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
17 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Denis Kaikov slips down the pecking order
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Denis Kaikov is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Market7 Sep 2026
Legion are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Volna will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Market7 Sep 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
Irkutsk come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Volna did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Volna
Dmitry Rebrov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Volna asked and Spartak Nalchik said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Igor Sidorov 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Anatoly Milyukov 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Platon Mamonov 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.
Match8 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“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.