Marked for Anton Shamonin
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Rostov
Valentino Tedesco 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Anton Shamonin is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Boardroom12 Oct 2026
121% of the income goes out in wages at Rostov
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Time is catching up with Gastón Rossi
Everybody at Rostov saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Ronaldo's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Rostov are still strangers to each other
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
“I did not go to SKA Khabarovsk to sit and watch. I want to come back to Rostov and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 6 matches say the rest.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
A promise honoured at Rostov
Something was said to Danila Prokhin and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match30 Sep 2026
Rostov march on in the cup
Dinamo Vladivostok are out and Rostov go through, 2‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match3 Oct 2026
0‑3 to Spartak Moscow, 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.
Market5 Oct 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 Rostov, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match5 Oct 2026
Rostov are in real trouble now
Position 14, 6 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Anton Shamonin, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.71
A mark of 7.71 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 dugout5 Oct 2026
Daniil Odoevskiy: 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.” Rostov have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
A defender's goal wins it for Rostov — 7.35
1 for Daniil Shantaliy, marked 7.35, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Rostov can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Rostov
Valentino Tedesco 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
The bid was some way short and Rostov did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market7 Sep 2026
Oumar Sako 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 Rostov can pretend not to have heard.
Market7 Sep 2026
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Market7 Sep 2026
Ronaldo attracts admirers
The name of Ronaldo has come up in conversations Rostov were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Rostov
Valentino Tedesco 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Daniil Golikov is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Transfer targets7 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Rostov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oumar Sako 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Anton Zabolotny is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
“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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Rostov say no — this time
The offer from CSKA Moscow for Ronaldo was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.88 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Dinamo Moscow is saying, and nobody at Rostov is enjoying the guessing.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
$19.0K was the most the club would pay and Rubin were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Rostov
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Victor Melekhin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad24 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 Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets24 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.