Marked for Yegor Lipaev
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Kaluga
Ilja Grischenko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Nov 2026
A row about effort at Kaluga
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Zakhar Kravtsov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Artem Kuzmin 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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Sergey Iljin has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Kaluga 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.
Market9 Nov 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Dmitry Yugaldin’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market9 Nov 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.
Market9 Nov 2026
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Nikita Kuzin may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Daud Daliev is doing the arithmetic
The table has started to be checked before the results are in, and that is always the tell. Nobody at Kaluga says the word out loud, and everybody in the building is thinking it.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Kaluga, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 Oct 2026
11 matches without a win for Angusht
The run now stands at 11, and the questions being asked around Angusht are no longer polite ones.
Market19 Oct 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 Angusht can pretend not to have heard.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Aman Babakhanov is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
31 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Match17 Oct 2026
0‑1 to Sevastopol, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 German Nikitin left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Rashid Yevloev, and the manager let it.
Looking ahead19 Oct 2026
Rubin Yalta next, and one man in the Angusht dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 11. 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
Crisis
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Aliskhan Akhilgov and Angusht agree another 1 years.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The offer went to Astrakhan this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
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 Angusht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match1 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Leningradets 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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Kaluga: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan move for Vadim Balabanov is in the works
Angusht have made the call to Neftyanik. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Daud Daliev commits to Kaluga for another 4 years.
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 Kaluga this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match1 Aug 2026
Dinamo Vladivostok left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Market3 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Yegor Lipaev again, and this time the name on the line is Angusht. Kaluga are listening politely and promising nothing.
The dugout3 Aug 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Kaluga training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zakhar Kravtsov 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.
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
Still no offer on the table, and Ilja Grischenko’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Kaluga are still strangers to each other
10 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.