Marked for Vadim Tkachenko
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Aug 2027
83 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Arsenal Dzerzhinsk lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Mark Mokin, 21, steals the show — 7.96
Marked 7.96 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
The dugout9 Aug 2027
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Market9 Aug 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Arsenal Dzerzhinsk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Denis Polyakov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ivan Oreshkevich and Arsenal Dzerzhinsk agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The terraces9 Aug 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Mark Mokin 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.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Match7 Aug 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mark Mokin. 1‑0 against Uni-X Labs, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings26 Apr 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.94 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match24 Apr 2027
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 85th, and Molodechno spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Match24 Apr 2027
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 11 matches without defeat is a foundation Arsenal Dzerzhinsk did not have in the autumn.
Squad26 Apr 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arsenal Dzerzhinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Apr 2027
At 21, Mark Mokin is already the best thing here
An average of 7.04 in a first team he is several years too young for. Arsenal Dzerzhinsk have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Vladislav Vasiljev 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 dugout26 Apr 2027
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Yan Balanovich could afford to be generous.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
“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
Uneasy
Squad30 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Valeriy Gorbachik
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Arsenal Dzerzhinsk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market30 Nov 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 Arsenal Dzerzhinsk, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad30 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arsenal Dzerzhinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Arsenal Dzerzhinsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladislav Vasiljev 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 dugout30 Nov 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Valeriy Gorbachik trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad30 Nov 2026
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Arsenal Dzerzhinsk will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.