Marked for Lorenzo
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match29 Sep 2029
14 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.
Squad1 Oct 2029
The knee: Nikita Ivlev out for 95 days
95 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Spartak Nalchik lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market1 Oct 2029
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Spartak Nalchik can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Oct 2029
Lorenzo wants to go home
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Spartak Nalchik know it.
Squad1 Oct 2029
Khachim Mashukov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match29 Sep 2029
Rostov 2 left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Boardroom1 Oct 2029
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Boardroom1 Oct 2029
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
The dugout1 Oct 2029
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Alexei Martynov to a room that had heard them before.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match15 Sep 2029
No end in sight to Spartak Nalchik's wait for a win
12 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Spartak Nalchik has to find a result from somewhere.
Market17 Sep 2029
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Spartak Nalchik can pretend not to have heard.
Match17 Sep 2029
Every point is an argument now for Spartak Nalchik
Position 11 and 5 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Squad17 Sep 2029
19 days out for Yuri Korolev after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Spartak Nalchik will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The dugout17 Sep 2029
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Match15 Sep 2029
1‑2 to Kuban Holding, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout17 Sep 2029
The manager makes an example of Andrey Kulagin
“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.
Boardroom17 Sep 2029
117% of the income goes out in wages at Spartak Nalchik
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.
The dugout17 Sep 2029
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match8 Sep 2029
11 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.
Market10 Sep 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 Spartak Nalchik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad10 Sep 2029
A fracture rules Yuri Korolev out for 26 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Spartak Nalchik will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom10 Sep 2029
Window shuts: 15 in, 14 out at Spartak Nalchik
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 15 arrived, 14 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad10 Sep 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 Spartak Nalchik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets10 Sep 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Irkutsk have kept their man, and Spartak Nalchik go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad10 Sep 2029
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Khachim Mashukov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad10 Sep 2029
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Boardroom10 Sep 2029
Nobody has barred the club from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every incoming name comes with an outgoing one attached.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match4 Aug 2029
0‑3 to Legion, 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.
Market6 Aug 2029
Lorenzo puts it in writing
“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 Spartak Nalchik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match4 Aug 2029
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Spartak Nalchik are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom6 Aug 2029
The instruction came from the boardroom and the dugout did not agree with it. Somebody will go, the fee will be called good business, and the manager will spend the season rebuilding around the space.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Lorenzo wants to go home
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Spartak Nalchik know it.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Kirill Balashov 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.
Transfer targets6 Aug 2029
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.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Khachim Mashukov 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 dugout6 Aug 2029
The manager makes an example of Soslan Lysenko
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market16 Jul 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.
Squad16 Jul 2029
The step up is real for Lorenzo
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.
Market16 Jul 2029
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Spartak Nalchik they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Kirill Balashov 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.
Squad16 Jul 2029
David Sarbashev has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Boardroom16 Jul 2029
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Spartak Nalchik
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Words at Spartak Nalchik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khachim Mashukov 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.
Market16 Jul 2029
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Sergei Gorshkov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market16 Jul 2029
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Eduard Shevchenko is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market9 Jul 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 Spartak Nalchik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market9 Jul 2029
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Vladislav Suslov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartak Nalchik the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Akhmed Kumyshev is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Khachim Mashukov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets9 Jul 2029
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 dugout9 Jul 2029
Lorenzo 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.
Market9 Jul 2029
1 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Spartak Nalchik money.
The dugout9 Jul 2029
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Spartak Nalchik told Semyon Sychev something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout9 Jul 2029
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 Sergey Cheryshev is on it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market2 Jul 2029
Lorenzo puts it in writing
“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 Spartak Nalchik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market2 Jul 2029
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Konstantin Kotov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartak Nalchik the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad2 Jul 2029
David Sarbashev 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.
Transfer targets2 Jul 2029
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.
Squad2 Jul 2029
Khachim Mashukov 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.
Squad2 Jul 2029
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.
Boardroom2 Jul 2029
Signed today, seen by nobody for years, and one of them may one day be the reason the club exists. That is the whole of the argument for an academy, and it is a good one.
The dugout2 Jul 2029
Lorenzo 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 Lorenzo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad2 Jul 2029
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Spartak Nalchik than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market11 Jun 2029
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Spartak Nalchik can pretend not to have heard.
Market11 Jun 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Spartak Nalchik is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad11 Jun 2029
Khachim Mashukov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Jun 2029
Words at Spartak Nalchik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leonid Yefremov 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.
Market11 Jun 2029
2 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Spartak Nalchik could get for him.
Market11 Jun 2029
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Khakim Kadykoev signs something — a contract at Spartak Nalchik or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout11 Jun 2029
Sergey Cheryshev has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Spartak Nalchik 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.
The dugout11 Jun 2029
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Spartak Nalchik, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad11 Jun 2029
Lorenzo remains an outsider
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 Spartak Nalchik would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market4 Jun 2029
Malik Kenzhev 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 Spartak Nalchik can pretend not to have heard.
Market4 Jun 2029
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Spartak Nalchik they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad4 Jun 2029
Khachim Mashukov 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.
Market4 Jun 2029
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
The dugout4 Jun 2029
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Spartak Nalchik, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market4 Jun 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Soslan Lysenko’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout4 Jun 2029
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.
Squad4 Jun 2029
The competition arrived without a word said to him about it. Khakim Kadykoev keeps the shirt for now, at Spartak Nalchik's convenience rather than his own.