Marked for Emmanuel Addai
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match19 Sep 2026
4‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Match21 Sep 2026
Qarabag up to position 2
16 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A brace, and Musa Qurbanlı takes the afternoon — 8.86
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Musa Qurbanlı provided it, and the 8.86 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Transfer targets21 Sep 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Corinthians is saying, and nobody at Qarabag is enjoying the guessing.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Kady Borges 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
6 unbeaten for Qarabag
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Qarabag did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Reda Khadra was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.37. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.12 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.14, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 33. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
At 36 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.13, and nobody on the pitch better.
Match12 Sep 2026
The run is over for Qarabag
4 matches without defeat, and then Zira. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
Squad14 Sep 2026
8 new faces, and Qarabag are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Match12 Sep 2026
It needed Dimitrij Nazarov to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Zira, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Squad14 Sep 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Qarabag have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
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 Martin Zlomislić has written the date down.
Squad14 Sep 2026
At 31 he has made the position his own, and the man he took it from has to find something to say about it. Qarabag have a decision that made itself.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market31 Aug 2026
APOEL come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Qarabag did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match29 Aug 2026
Qarabag make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Qarabag have 3 straight wins of it.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Qarabag asked and Olimpia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match29 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over Gabala, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Marko Janković at his very best
Marked 8.34. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Qarabag.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
A loan move for Gui Negão is in the works
Qarabag have made the call to Corinthians. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Taofeek Ismaheel, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match15 Aug 2026
5‑0, and Reda Khadra took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Qarabag tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Reda Khadra, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.24 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market17 Aug 2026
Standard Liege pay $5.8M, 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.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Supporters turn on the $5.8M sale of Mateusz Kochalski
He is going to Standard Liege, the club has $5.8M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Inter wanted more than $1.1M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The paperwork begins on Gui Negão
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Qarabag have done the hard part with Corinthians, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Qarabag had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at AZ, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Market17 Aug 2026
Gabala pay $980.0K, 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.