Marked for Stallone Asaba
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market29 Apr 2030
Edwin Jumba 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 Irkutsk can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom29 Apr 2030
The numbers do not look good at Irkutsk
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.
Squad29 Apr 2030
Ivan Mokshin in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Irkutsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Apr 2030
Danila Molodnyakov 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.
Squad29 Apr 2030
Fedor Motovilov 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.
Market29 Apr 2030
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Irkutsk know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market1 Apr 2030
Edwin Jumba 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 Irkutsk can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom1 Apr 2030
The numbers do not look good at Irkutsk
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.
Squad1 Apr 2030
Yegor Perevoznikov 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.
Squad1 Apr 2030
Danila Molodnyakov 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.
Squad1 Apr 2030
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Irkutsk would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Market1 Apr 2030
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market11 Mar 2030
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad11 Mar 2030
Ivan Mokshin 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.
Squad11 Mar 2030
Words at Irkutsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danila Molodnyakov 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.
Squad11 Mar 2030
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.
Squad11 Mar 2030
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Irkutsk, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market11 Mar 2030
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Arseny Lavrentjev’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom4 Feb 2030
Irkutsk counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Irkutsk now.
Market4 Feb 2030
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom4 Feb 2030
The Irkutsk board want somebody sold
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Squad4 Feb 2030
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ivan Mokshin commits to Irkutsk for another 4 years.
Squad4 Feb 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Irkutsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Feb 2030
Words at Irkutsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danila Molodnyakov 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
Upbeat
Player ratings14 Jan 2030
Two goals and a mark of 8.02 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match12 Jan 2030
Irkutsk cannot stop winning
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad14 Jan 2030
“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.
Squad14 Jan 2030
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Yegor Perevoznikov commits to Irkutsk for another 3 years.
Squad14 Jan 2030
Yegor Perevoznikov 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.
Match12 Jan 2030
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Yoqubjon Qodirov. 2‑1 against Dinamo Vologda, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The terraces14 Jan 2030
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Evgeniy Alymov 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.
Squad14 Jan 2030
Danila Molodnyakov 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.
Player ratings14 Jan 2030
Successful dribbles: 15. 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
Market29 Oct 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Irkutsk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market29 Oct 2029
“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 Irkutsk, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings29 Oct 2029
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad29 Oct 2029
Ivan Mokshin 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 Oct 2029
Words at Irkutsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Molemo Seemela 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 terraces29 Oct 2029
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.
Squad29 Oct 2029
The manager makes an example of Fedor Motovilov
“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.
Squad29 Oct 2029
When it matters, Bjørn Marwa plays
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.
Player ratings29 Oct 2029
13 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Mar 2029
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market19 Mar 2029
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Stallone Asaba: 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.” Irkutsk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Danila Molodnyakov 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.
Squad19 Mar 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Irkutsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market19 Mar 2029
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Irkutsk know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market25 Dec 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Ivan Mokshin in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Irkutsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Molemo Seemela 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.
Squad25 Dec 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Stallone Asaba, and the manager let it.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Alexandr Konev 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.
Market25 Dec 2028
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Irkutsk know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.