5 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.
The deal with Lokomotiv Moscow is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Krylya Sovetov asked and Baltika said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Krylya Sovetov 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.
Ural left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad20 Aug 2029
Words at Krylya Sovetov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mihajlo Banjac 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.
Alania have accepted the money. What Krylya Sovetov do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Add another name to the list: Ural have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Egor Karpitskiy. The answer from Krylya Sovetov has not changed — yet.
Krylya Sovetov have gone to Spartak Kostroma with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Thomas Galdames 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.
Ural will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Enrique Sosa has pre-agreed a move to Krylya Sovetov, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
“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 Krylya Sovetov know it.
17 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Krylya Sovetov lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Krylya Sovetov is running low.
Fernando Costanza 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.
Squad28 May 2029
Artem Sokol 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alexandr Ageev and Krylya Sovetov agree another 2 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Krylya Sovetov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
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.
Fernando Costanza 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Artem Tsygulev is living that version at Krylya Sovetov, and it tends to show in the first month.
“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.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Artem Sokol 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 11 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Jan Eicher is living that version at Krylya Sovetov, and it tends to show in the first month.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Manchester City keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
The chase for Jan Eicher ended with $350.0K changing hands and Yenisey out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Fernando Costanza 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.
$220.0K on the table at Tyumen. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“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 Yenisey, and it is not being withdrawn.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. David Kokoev was one of the reasons people came, and $870.0K does not replace that by itself.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Redha Al-Abdullah has agreed terms with Rotor for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Yenisey this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Krylya Sovetov pay $350.0K, 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Yenisey can pretend not to have heard.
5 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.
The offer from Rubin for Nikita Bogatyrev 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Vadim Okulov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
1‑4 to Fakel, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Yenisey can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Yenisey they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Zakhar Badyuk has agreed terms with Sochi for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Boardroom17 Jul 2028
2 academy players handed senior numbers at Yenisey
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Yenisey can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Yenisey is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Yegor Ivanov 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Amir Batyrev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Lokomotiv Moscow have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Yenisey can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Yenisey is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Yegor Ivanov 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandr Lomakin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alexandr Lomakin signs something — a contract at Yenisey or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Artem Nadolskiy trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Yenisey can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Yenisey can pretend not to have heard.
“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; Yenisey are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Artem Gyurdzhan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Yegor Shamov was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
Nobody at Yenisey 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Yenisey is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Yegor Ivanov 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 accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at Yenisey training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandr Lomakin 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Yenisey, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alexandr Lomakin signs something — a contract at Yenisey or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Yenisey. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“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 Yenisey, and it is not being withdrawn.
Yegor Ivanov 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.
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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Yenisey, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Nika Kacharava has written the date down.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Yenisey is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Yegor Ivanov 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Artem Gyurdzhan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alexandr Lomakin signs something — a contract at Yenisey or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Yenisey. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Yenisey can pretend not to have heard.
Yegor Ivanov 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.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Words at Yenisey training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandr Lomakin 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Yenisey, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 3 arrived, 6 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Yenisey is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Yegor Ivanov 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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at Yenisey training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandr Lomakin 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.
102 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Yenisey lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 17 and 20 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.
“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 Yenisey, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Spartak 1918 for Ivan Kuznetsov 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Yenisey is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The deal with SKA Khabarovsk is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandr Lomakin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Yenisey have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Yenisey 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 Yenisey this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Magomed Ibragimov has, at Yenisey, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Yenisey know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
“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 Yenisey, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 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.
“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 Yenisey know it.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Luka Morozov after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
7 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Yenisey 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 Yenisey 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Konstantin Voinkov, and the manager let it.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Luka Morozov to a room that had heard them before.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Yenisey have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Leonel Ortíz did not need any: 7.99, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Yenisey 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 Yenisey this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jadelson Azul commits to Yenisey for another 2 years.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Yenisey training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandr Lomakin 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.