Marked for Gonzalo Requena
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad18 Jan 2027
Vladimir Khubulov damages knee ligaments — 43 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 43 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.
Boardroom18 Jan 2027
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Fernando Costanza 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.
Match16 Jan 2027
0‑2 to Rostov, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Kirill Pechenin 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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Gonzalo Requena, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Vladimir Khubulov
137 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Krylya Sovetov lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match31 Oct 2026
No end in sight to Krylya Sovetov's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Krylya Sovetov has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad2 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 Krylya Sovetov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Oct 2026
Fernando Costanza 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 ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match10 Oct 2026
0‑1 to Spartak Moscow, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A brace, and Ivan Oleinikov takes the afternoon — 8.25
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ivan Oleinikov provided it, and the 8.25 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad21 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 Krylya Sovetov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match19 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ivan Oleinikov. 2‑1 against Dinamo Makhachkala, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Yann Boé-Kane
“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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Too much change too quickly at Krylya Sovetov
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
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 Krylya Sovetov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
18 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Ivan Oleinikov
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Ivan Oleinikov has come out of that comparison in the side, and Krylya Sovetov have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Dominik Oroz gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Roman Yevgenjev 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 Aug 2026
Manuel Roffo is the hero from the spot
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Manuel Roffo: 2 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match26 Aug 2026
A 0‑0 win over Tigre, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Squad31 Aug 2026
Franco Jara in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Instituto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 22, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Nobody could get near Alex Luna
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match29 Aug 2026
Three points for Instituto, 1‑0 the final word against Boca Juniors in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad31 Aug 2026
14 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
It was his to settle and he did not settle it. A long walk back to the halfway line, and a considerably longer week.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Jonathan Galván's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
There were 13 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 7.83 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Fernando Costanza 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.
The terraces31 Aug 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sergey Bozhin, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ivan Oleinikov and Krylya Sovetov agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 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 Krylya Sovetov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Gonzalo Requena 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 ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market3 Aug 2026
The clock runs on Ivan Oleinikov's contract
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.