Marked for Mohammed Ensebaev
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Nov 2026
Vasiliy Sovpel and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market9 Nov 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Samat Shomko has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Azizbek Ergashaliyev and Okzhetpes agree another 3 years.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
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 Vladislav Vasiljev is on it.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Questions about Mohammed Ensebaev on the training pitch
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Oct 2026
Dmitriy Borodin 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 Oct 2026
“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
Steady
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Okzhetpes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dmitriy Borodin 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 dugout19 Oct 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mohammed Ensebaev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Urartu keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
$84.0K was the most the club would pay and Astana were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sogdiana have kept their man, and Okzhetpes go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Zhalğas Zhaqsylyqov 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
AEL Larisa 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.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Nobody at Okzhetpes 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.