“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 The request is on a desk at Pogradeci, and it is not being withdrawn.
The name of Bruno Puja has come up in conversations Pogradeci were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The deal with Besa Kavajë is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it 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 Pogradeci this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Klevis Shaqe was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Buddy Vogelzang has his answer from Pogradeci; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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 Klevis Shaqe is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Klevis Shaqe trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Pogradeci will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pogradeci can pretend not to have heard.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Pogradeci have done the hard part with Burreli, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Henry Ndedi 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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Stiven Bibo commits to Pogradeci for another 3 years.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Klevis Shaqe 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Pogradeci has been clear about where Henry Ndedi stands, which is more than many ever get.
The club is not barred from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every name linked with Pogradeci this window arrives with a name leaving in the same sentence.
Words at Chelyabinsk 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yefim Stanislavchuk 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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Chelyabinsk 2 will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Chelyabinsk 2, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chelyabinsk 2 can pretend not to have heard.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words at Chelyabinsk 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Ignatjev 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.
12 combined actions and 6.80. 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Maxim Korotkov after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Chelyabinsk 2, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Dinamo Barnaul defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Denis Pokotylo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.88
A mark of 7.88 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
Grigory Avanesyan and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Chelyabinsk 2 would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
10 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Maxim Korotkov after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Arseny Salenko’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Chelyabinsk 2 needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yury Rudakov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A side in position 8 visits next. The result will not make anybody’s season and it could quietly break the shape of one, which is why the manager has been watching the video since Sunday.
In brief
SquadThe training reports on Nikolay Kozlov are not good
“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 Chelyabinsk 2, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at Chelyabinsk 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yefim Stanislavchuk 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chelyabinsk 2 can pretend not to have heard.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Words at Chelyabinsk 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yefim Stanislavchuk 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chelyabinsk 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
In brief
The dugoutArtem Tushin knocks on the manager’s door