Marked for Ivan Veselkov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match26 Aug 2028
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.
Market28 Aug 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Dinamo Kirov, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Bakhammad Khadjimusala did not need any: 7.98, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad28 Aug 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Kirov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match26 Aug 2028
Leningradets left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad28 Aug 2028
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Words at Dinamo Kirov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roman Polkovnikov 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Dzmitry Savitski'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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces21 Aug 2028
Anger at Dinamo Kirov spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Match16 Aug 2028
Irtysh are out and Dinamo Kirov go through, 0‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match19 Aug 2028
9 matches without a win for Dinamo Kirov
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around Dinamo Kirov are no longer polite ones.
Market21 Aug 2028
“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 Dinamo Kirov, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match21 Aug 2028
Every point is an argument now for Dinamo Kirov
Position 9 and 2 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.
Squad21 Aug 2028
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Dmitry Roslyakov: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Ivan Veselkov is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Player ratings21 Aug 2028
A hand in 2 of them from Bilal Akhjadov — 7.85
Marked 7.85. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Bakhammad Khadjimusala 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match29 Jul 2028
Chastening afternoon for Dinamo Kirov
A 0‑3 beating by Veles was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Market31 Jul 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Kirov can pretend not to have heard.
Match29 Jul 2028
5 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.
Squad31 Jul 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Kirov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Jul 2028
The manager makes an example of Evgeny Pesikov
“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.
Boardroom31 Jul 2028
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Words at Dinamo Kirov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roman Polkovnikov 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.
Player ratings31 Jul 2028
Successful dribbles: 14. 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
Market17 Jul 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Kirov can pretend not to have heard.
Market17 Jul 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Roman Polkovnikov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dinamo Kirov the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ivan Veselkov is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad17 Jul 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Kirov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom17 Jul 2028
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Dinamo Kirov
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.
Market17 Jul 2028
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fedor Laptev is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market17 Jul 2028
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Daniil Fedorov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Maxim Lauk 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.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Words at Dinamo Kirov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roman Polkovnikov 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
Uneasy
Boardroom10 Jul 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Dinamo Kirov
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market10 Jul 2028
“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 Dinamo Kirov, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Evgeny Pesikov 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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Roman Polkovnikov has improved at 25, 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.
Boardroom10 Jul 2028
Wages eat 108% of everything Dinamo Kirov earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad10 Jul 2028
“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 Dinamo Kirov know it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces29 May 2028
Anger at Dinamo Kirov spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Match29 May 2028
Position 8, 22 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.
Market29 May 2028
“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 Dinamo Kirov, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market29 May 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Kirov is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad29 May 2028
Evgeny Pesikov 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.
Boardroom29 May 2028
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Boardroom29 May 2028
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Squad29 May 2028
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Dinamo Kirov told Alexandr Chizh something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad29 May 2028
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 May 2028
Ivan Veselkov damages knee ligaments — 19 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 19 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad15 May 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom15 May 2028
The scrutiny sharpens at Dinamo Kirov
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Dinamo Kirov is running low.
Market15 May 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Kirov can pretend not to have heard.
Squad15 May 2028
Evgeny Pesikov 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.
Squad15 May 2028
Words at Dinamo Kirov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrey Malykh 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
Uneasy
Squad8 May 2028
Ivan Veselkov damages knee ligaments — 26 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 26 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad8 May 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom8 May 2028
Yegor Ostrovsky has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Dinamo Kirov can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Market8 May 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Kirov can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom8 May 2028
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market8 May 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Kirov they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad8 May 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Andrey Malykh commits to Dinamo Kirov for another 2 years.
Squad8 May 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Kirov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom8 May 2028
$15.9K of the owner's money at Dinamo Kirov
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces1 May 2028
Anger at Dinamo Kirov spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad1 May 2028
Ivan Veselkov damages knee ligaments — 33 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 33 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad1 May 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match1 May 2028
22 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market1 May 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.
Market1 May 2028
German Ragulin has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Kirov they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad1 May 2028
Evgeny Pesikov 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 May 2028
Words at Dinamo Kirov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrey Malykh 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.
Boardroom1 May 2028
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market27 Mar 2028
“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 Dinamo Kirov, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom27 Mar 2028
The numbers do not look good at Dinamo Kirov
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.
Market27 Mar 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Kirov they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad27 Mar 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Kirov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Ivan Veselkov 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom24 Jan 2028
The scrutiny sharpens at Dinamo Kirov
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Dinamo Kirov is running low.
Market24 Jan 2028
“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 Dinamo Kirov, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Evgeny Pesikov 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.
Boardroom24 Jan 2028
Wages eat 108% of everything Dinamo Kirov earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad24 Jan 2028
“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.
Squad24 Jan 2028
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces27 Sep 2027
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 11 of the 25 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Market27 Sep 2027
“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.
Market27 Sep 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Kirov they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Evgeny Pesikov 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.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Words at Dinamo Kirov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrey Malykh 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.
Squad27 Sep 2027
The manager makes an example of Andrey Malykh
“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.
Squad27 Sep 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.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
5.44. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Aug 2027
Daniil Maltsev: 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.” Dinamo Kirov have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match31 Jul 2027
4 matches without a win for Dinamo Kirov
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Dinamo Kirov are no longer polite ones.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Evgeny Pesikov 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Dinamo Kirov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrey Malykh 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.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“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.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
A performance of 8.08 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Market2 Aug 2027
No place for Artem Pasko in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Artem Pasko has his answer from Dinamo Kirov; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Match31 Jul 2027
It needed Evgeny Pesikov to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Veles, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 14. 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
Squad21 Jun 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Nikita Rossokhin
51 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dinamo Kirov lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces21 Jun 2027
Supporters turn on the $220.0K sale of Nikolay Kamaev
He is going to Rodina, the club has $220.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ivan Veselkov is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Evgeny Pesikov 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.
Boardroom21 Jun 2027
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Dinamo Kirov now.
Market21 Jun 2027
Rodina paid $220.0K and Dinamo Kirov took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Nikita Rossokhin
100 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dinamo Kirov lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad3 May 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Kirov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Loan watch3 May 2027
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Dinamo Kirov, and 0 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market15 Mar 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Kirov can pretend not to have heard.
Squad15 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Kirov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ivan Veselkov commits to Dinamo Kirov for another 4 years.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Feb 2027
Nikita Kochkin damages knee ligaments — 21 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 21 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market15 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 Dinamo Kirov, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Alexandr Chizh: 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.” Dinamo Kirov have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.