Marked for Alexandr Degtev
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Apr 2027
Leminger Bolívar damages knee ligaments — 67 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 67 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 dugout5 Apr 2027
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sochi have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad5 Apr 2027
A falling-out at Sochi
Sergey Volkov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Apr 2027
“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; Sochi are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Alexandr Soldatenkov 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.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
“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 dugout5 Apr 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sochi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market5 Apr 2027
“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 dugout5 Apr 2027
Zakhar Fedorov has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Sochi 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad29 Mar 2027
75 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sochi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Vyacheslav Litvinov 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.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Justin Möbius gets picked when it counts
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 Justin Möbius is on it.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Vladimir Iljin knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vladimir Iljin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Roman Yezhov has been promised minutes
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Roman Yezhov has written the date down.
Market29 Mar 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Alexandr Degtev’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market29 Mar 2027
Sochi have made Leminger Bolívar available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Pavel Meleshin plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
Squad29 Mar 2027
The sharpest man in every session this week, by all accounts. Lines like this run the week before somebody’s run in the side begins.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Mar 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Leminger Bolívar
98 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sochi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market8 Mar 2027
“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 Sochi, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Yury Dyupin commits to Sochi for another 2 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
A row about effort at Sochi
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vyacheslav Litvinov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“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; Sochi are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
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 dugout8 Mar 2027
Roman Yezhov asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market8 Mar 2027
The name of Mikhail Ignatov keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Sochi say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match27 Feb 2027
12 matches without a win for Sochi
The run now stands at 12, and the questions being asked around Sochi are no longer polite ones.
Squad1 Mar 2027
106 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sochi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market1 Mar 2027
“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 Sochi, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
Marcelo Alves: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sochi have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad1 Mar 2027
A one-man rearguard from Yury Dyupin
There were 7 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.
Market1 Mar 2027
The deal that would have taken Alexandr Degtev to Krylya Sovetov has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Sochi with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Boardroom1 Mar 2027
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at Sochi 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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
“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; Sochi are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Words at Sochi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandr Soldatenkov 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
At 22 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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Vyacheslav Litvinov, and the manager let it.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
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.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Krasnodar in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Squad12 Oct 2026
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Sochi would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Alexandr Degtev has written the date down.
Market12 Oct 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Pavel Meleshin’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad12 Oct 2026
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Sochi the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Market12 Oct 2026
Krasnodar had somebody in the stand with a notebook, and he was not there for the pies. Watching is free; the next step is not.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
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 Sochi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets21 Sep 2026
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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Artem Makarchuk did the work nobody counts — 7.10
10 combined actions and 7.10. 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.
Loan watch21 Sep 2026
7 appearances away from home and 11 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
The dugout21 Sep 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 Arseniy Serov left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alexandr Degtev, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Roman Yezhov asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Looking ahead21 Sep 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Akron in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.