The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Dominik Celija did not need any: 8.53, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftekhimik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Timofey Kashintsev 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.
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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
A place in the month's best eleven for Artem Kotik
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Artem Kotik has come out of that comparison in the side, and Neftekhimik have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
A 0‑3 beating by Krasnodar was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
The terraces29 Nov 2027
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 5 of the 23 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Ivan Oblyakov 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.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Moisés 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.
Shots: 10. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Maxim Sidelnikov obliged against Alania. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is CSKA Moscow.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matvey Kislyak wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gleb Popolitov is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 76 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
15 goals in 18 games at Internacional — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
8 new faces, and CSKA Moscow are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ramiro Di Luciano and CSKA Moscow agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Ivan Oblyakov 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Maxim Voronov is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
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.
Márk Müller 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.