Marked for Dmitry Pavlov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
Evgeny Rodionov has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Torpedo Miass can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Market8 Feb 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Torpedo Miass have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market8 Feb 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 The request is on a desk at Torpedo Miass, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Vitaly Bondarev 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.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
The medical room confirms 15 days on the sidelines for Lev Kalinichev, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Alexandr Balakhonov 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 dugout8 Feb 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 Feb 2027
Nikita Khlynov 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 Nikita Khlynov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 Oct 2026
1‑4 to Kaluga, 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 dugout19 Oct 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Up for the corner, and Rustam Vazitdinov delivers — 7.91
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Rustam Vazitdinov scored, was marked 7.91, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Vitaly Bondarev 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Torpedo Miass training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dmitry Kuzmin 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.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Evgeny Lopatko
“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.
Looking ahead19 Oct 2026
Two sides from the bottom of the table, three points, and an afternoon that will be described afterwards as a relegation decider by whoever loses it.
Boardroom19 Oct 2026
Nobody left the Torpedo Miass dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 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 Torpedo Miass can pretend not to have heard.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Vitaly Bondarev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Torpedo Miass asked and SKA Khabarovsk said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Dmitry Kuzmin 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
A loan move for Andrey Marjanov is in the works
Torpedo Miass have made the call to Tyumen. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Hugo Parra named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Hugo Parra is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Market7 Sep 2026
Dmitry Pavlov is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Torpedo Miass has been clear about where Dmitry Pavlov stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Alexey Larin 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
Dmitry Kuzmin hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Torpedo Miass can pretend not to have heard.
Market31 Aug 2026
Alania come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Torpedo Miass did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Torpedo Miass had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Fakel, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad31 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 Torpedo Miass this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets31 Aug 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.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
13 new faces, and Torpedo Miass 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 dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Evgeny Rodionov was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Torpedo Miass dressing room was either.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. 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
Steady
Match19 Aug 2026
Murom are out and Torpedo Miass go through, 3‑2 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 Torpedo Miass, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Vitaly Bondarev, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.87
A mark of 7.87 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Vladimir Uljanovskiy and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Torpedo Miass asked and Rodina said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match22 Aug 2026
A 2‑1 win over Avangard, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.34 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.