The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Veles have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The deal with Ryazan 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ionafan Sapozhnikov is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Kirill Korolkov 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.
Nobody at Veles 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Veles, and both men came out saying it was fine.
24 points from position 4. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Veles is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Kirill Korolkov 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Veles know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Zakhar Tarasenko plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
The language is arriving, the jokes are landing, and there is somebody at the next peg to talk to. None of it appears in a scouting report and all of it shows up on the pitch.
In brief
SquadIshkhan Geloyan is training like a man with a point to make
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Veles can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Veles is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Ilja Kuptsov is on it.
52 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Veles lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Veles can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Veles this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Kirill Korolkov is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Vladislav Galkin signs something — a contract at Veles or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
BoardroomOpen for business: Veles enter the window
The dugoutIvan Nikin asks for a word with the manager
The words a physio says slowly. 88 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Veles they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
102 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Veles lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Kirill Korolkov 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Veles know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Veles they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Something was said to Yury Zavezen and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Sibir will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Veles were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
A brace, and Oleg Smirnov takes the afternoon — 9.01
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Oleg Smirnov provided it, and the 9.01 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alexandr Krasnopevtsev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Veles the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Marked 7.89. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Veles can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 11 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Veles until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The offer from Kosmos for Bogdan Markov 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Veles this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nikita Osipov after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.