Marked for Danila Godyaev
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Sep 2026
Anton Sinyak hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sokol can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Sokol close the window on a squad of their own making
22 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Sokol
Danila Godyaev 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Dário Júnior 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
A 2‑1 win over Chelyabinsk, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
At 23 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
The drought breaks for Sokol
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Chelyabinsk were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Player ratings14 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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Maxim Karpov, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Kosmos waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Sokol is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Sokol
Danila Godyaev 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
$27.0K was the most the club would pay and Ufa 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 targets7 Sep 2026
Sokol asked and Dinamo St Petersburg said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Sokol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleksej Golijanin 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
A stepping stone, not a home, for Ionut Maxim
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Sokol were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Sokol are still strangers to each other
17 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Squad7 Sep 2026
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Sokol are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Sokol has been clear about where Vladislav Kostin stands, which is more than many ever get.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match15 Aug 2026
A hiding for Sokol
Beaten 1‑4 by Ural, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Sokol have done the hard part with Vojvodina, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Textilschik have kept their man, and Sokol go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Sokol
Artem Bykov 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Chertanovo have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Egor Mamonov. The answer from Sokol has not changed — yet.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Nobody left the Sokol dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.