The Khazar Gazette
The dugout27 Dec 2027
Bas Pennock says Khazar went back on their word
“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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words exchanged at Khazar
Samuel Lobato 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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Khazar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abbas Hüseynov 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 dugout27 Dec 2027
Phillipe Gabriel 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.
Boardroom27 Dec 2027
Wages eat 127% of everything Khazar 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.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
One of those days for Samuel Lobato
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.21, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
The team sheet said everything about Rodrigo
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 Rodrigo.
Match25 Dec 2027
Samuel Lobato rescues a point for Khazar
It needed Samuel Lobato to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Neftchi, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Dimitrij Mammadov chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
In brief
- Squad The weekend belonged to Emin Nazarov
- Market The Emin Nazarov story refuses to die
- Squad “I want to play”: Maksim Garayev speaks