Marked for Denis Bazygin
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match12 Sep 2029
Al-Riyadh through in the cup
A 1‑0 win over Damac, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match15 Sep 2029
4‑1, and Hisham Al-Dubais took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Al-Riyadh tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings17 Sep 2029
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.72, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad17 Sep 2029
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings17 Sep 2029
Victor Lekhal pops up at the right end — 7.63
7.63, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Squad17 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 Al-Riyadh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Sep 2029
Words at Al-Riyadh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jan Petek 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.
Transfer targets17 Sep 2029
Al-Riyadh asked and Al-Hilal said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The terraces17 Sep 2029
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Denis Bazygin 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market30 Jul 2029
Al-Shoulla come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Al-Riyadh did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market30 Jul 2029
Turki Al-Nemer has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Al-Riyadh they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad30 Jul 2029
Saad Al-Zahrani and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad30 Jul 2029
Jan Petek 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.
Squad30 Jul 2029
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Al-Riyadh can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Loan watch30 Jul 2029
“I watch every Al-Riyadh game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Al-Nassr runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Boardroom30 Jul 2029
Wages swallow 94% of the Al-Riyadh income
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Transfer targets30 Jul 2029
Al-Nahda have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout30 Jul 2029
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces3 Jul 2028
Anger at Krylya Sovetov 2 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.
Squad3 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 Krylya Sovetov 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at Krylya Sovetov 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yegor Chistyakov 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 dugout3 Jul 2028
“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.
The dugout3 Jul 2028
Andrey Tsorn 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 Andrey Tsorn trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Chinedu Geoffrey has moved up it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Jun 2028
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Krylya Sovetov 2 will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The terraces5 Jun 2028
Supporters organise against the Krylya Sovetov 2 board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Dmytro Ivanisenya 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Chinedu Geoffrey was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad5 Jun 2028
6 new faces, and Krylya Sovetov 2 are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Market5 Jun 2028
Krylya Sovetov 2 have let the market know Chinedu Geoffrey can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 May 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Dmytro Ivanisenya and Krylya Sovetov 2 agree another 2 years.
Squad8 May 2028
Yegor Borisov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 May 2028
“I want to play”: Andrey Tsorn speaks
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market17 Apr 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Krylya Sovetov 2 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dmytro Ivanisenya, and the manager let it.
Market17 Apr 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Yegor Truntaev’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 Apr 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 Krylya Sovetov 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
“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.
Market10 Apr 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nikolay Maximov signs something — a contract at Krylya Sovetov 2 or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market6 Mar 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nikita Degtyarev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Krylya Sovetov 2 the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad6 Mar 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Nikolay Maximov and Krylya Sovetov 2 agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Dmytro Ivanisenya 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.
Squad6 Mar 2028
At 20 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.
Market6 Mar 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Danil Beltyukov signs something — a contract at Krylya Sovetov 2 or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Feb 2028
Danil Beltyukov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom7 Feb 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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Andrey Tsorn: “I am not a substitute”
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Krylya Sovetov 2 will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
The dugout7 Feb 2028
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Market7 Feb 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Danil Beltyukov signs something — a contract at Krylya Sovetov 2 or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Squad7 Feb 2028
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Krylya Sovetov 2 have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match8 Jan 2028
4 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.
Match8 Jan 2028
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Krylya Sovetov 2 can tell you which week it ends in.
Match8 Jan 2028
Khimik left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout10 Jan 2028
“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.
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout10 Jan 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Andrey Zotkin left the room before anybody could ask which.
Market10 Jan 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Danil Beltyukov signs something — a contract at Krylya Sovetov 2 or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout10 Jan 2028
No place in the plan for Nikita Ivlev
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Squad10 Jan 2028
“Nobody outside is coming to save us.” It was short, it was not comfortable, and by all accounts the Krylya Sovetov 2 squad were quieter afterwards than they had been all season.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match22 Nov 2027
Position 11, 15 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.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
The manager makes an example of Danil Beltyukov
“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 ratings22 Nov 2027
One lapse, one goal, and ninety minutes of honest work counting for nothing. That is the job at Krylya Sovetov 2, and it is a cruel one.
Match20 Nov 2027
A 1‑1 draw with Volna leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
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 dugout22 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Andrey Zotkin was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Krylya Sovetov 2 dressing room was either.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
Andrey Tsorn knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Krylya Sovetov 2, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad22 Nov 2027
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Krylya Sovetov 2 have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Market22 Nov 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Nikolay Maximov’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.