The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Neftyanik keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
1‑3 to Rostov 2, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Jakub Kantyka 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
PSK Pervorechenskoe have made the call to Veles. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Something was said to Amirkhan Selyaev and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what PSK Pervorechenskoe can pretend not to have heard.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; PSK Pervorechenskoe are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Anatoly Anisimov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Łukasz Borkowski was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Anatoly Anisimov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jakub Kantyka was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” PSK Pervorechenskoe have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Anatoly Anisimov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Łukasz Borkowski was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Yegor Pozdnyakov scored, was marked 7.99, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” PSK Pervorechenskoe have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.80, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
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.
Anatoly Anisimov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Łukasz Borkowski was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Lucas Neverdal provided it, and the 8.63 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSK Pervorechenskoe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
At 19 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.
The goal that put Sevastopol ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when PSK Pervorechenskoe equalised, 3 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at PSK Pervorechenskoe, another week without a signature from Vladimir Tolmachev.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Łukasz Borkowski was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Stepan Kalinovsky to a room that had heard them before.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Nikita Gorunkov scored, was marked 7.82, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Anatoly Anisimov 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.
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.
A 2‑1 win over Zarya Lugansk, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Amirkhan Selyaev 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.
25 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Stepan Kalinovsky could afford to be generous.
1 for Danil Kazantsev, marked 7.81, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Anatoly Anisimov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Amirkhan Selyaev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It needed Danil Kazantsev to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Spartak Nalchik, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
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 Lucas Neverdal is on it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what PSK Pervorechenskoe can pretend not to have heard.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; PSK Pervorechenskoe are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSK Pervorechenskoe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Domagoj Pojer trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Spartak Nalchik next, and one man in the PSK Pervorechenskoe dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at PSK Pervorechenskoe, and it is not being withdrawn.
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 36 signed and 18 gone
That is the business done at PSK Pervorechenskoe until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSK Pervorechenskoe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Tyumen have kept their man, and PSK Pervorechenskoe go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Krzysztof Kalemba was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
0‑4 to Dinamo Stavropol, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Torpedo Miass keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Yegor Pozdnyakov and PSK Pervorechenskoe agree another 3 years.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. PSK Pervorechenskoe have paid $41.0K for Amirkhan Selyaev, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at PSK Pervorechenskoe this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Amirkhan Selyaev was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $41.0K. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo St Petersburg have kept their man, and PSK Pervorechenskoe go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
1 for Islam Pekov, marked 7.90, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
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.
Alan Khachirov 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.
PSK Pervorechenskoe paid $41.0K and Spartak Nalchik took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ondřej Sprinz 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.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Spartak Nalchik were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 19 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. PSK Pervorechenskoe have done the hard part with Spartak Nalchik, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Match8 Aug 2026
Nobody could stop scoring
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about PSK Pervorechenskoe and Neftyanik in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Yaroslav Zinovyev is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Denis Kashirin 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Fyodor Antonov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fedor Lopatin is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑7 defeat, delivered by Stepan Kalinovsky to a room that had heard them before.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Spartak Nalchik people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Spartak Nalchik can pretend not to have heard.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Matyáš Bitta and Spartak Nalchik agree another 3 years.
15 combined actions and 6.92. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ondřej Sprinz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Aleksandr Korsakov 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.
PSK Pervorechenskoe have gone to Spartak Nalchik with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
PSK Pervorechenskoe 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.
PSK Pervorechenskoe have made the call to Luki-Energiya. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
A 1‑1 draw with Shakhter Donetsk leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Stepan Kalinovsky was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the PSK Pervorechenskoe dressing room was either.
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Anton Kolobov leaves PSK Pervorechenskoe the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Soslan Lysenko and Spartak Nalchik agree another 4 years.
Alan Khachirov 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.
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.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Miroslav Skvortsov after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.