Marked for Esteban Alfaro
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 49. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Dec 2026
A season average of 7.34 with 11 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Kosmos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilsur Valeev 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market9 Nov 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kosmos can pretend not to have heard.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Yegor Tinyakov: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Kosmos have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match7 Nov 2026
4 matches without a win for Kosmos
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Kosmos are no longer polite ones.
Squad9 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 Kosmos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Ilsur Valeev 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.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Nikita Yershov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.08. 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kirill Larionov, and the manager let it.
Match7 Nov 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces26 Oct 2026
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Kosmos
Esteban Alfaro 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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
7.23, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Kosmos had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Match24 Oct 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Luki-Energiya leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Squad26 Oct 2026
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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Pavel Klinov
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.06 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match5 Sep 2026
Three points for Kosmos, 4‑3 the final word against Spartak Moscow 2 in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Match5 Sep 2026
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Kosmos and Spartak Moscow 2 in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Kosmos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilsur Valeev 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 terraces7 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Nikita Yershov 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 ratings7 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.25, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.15, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Alexey Logvinov
“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.
Squad7 Sep 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 Kosmos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad31 Aug 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 Kosmos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match29 Aug 2026
2‑3 to Yenisey 2, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.