Marked for Aarón Martín
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market4 Oct 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Bunyodkor is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nika Kvekveskiri commits to Bunyodkor for another 2 years.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words exchanged at Bunyodkor
Nika Kvekveskiri 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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
A row about effort at Bunyodkor
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sardor Rahmonov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
“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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Aarón Martín named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Aarón Martín is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout4 Oct 2027
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Bunyodkor. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Market4 Oct 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Bunyodkor know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market4 Oct 2027
Bunyodkor have let the market know Mirkamol Annamatov can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings6 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 40. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match4 Sep 2027
Still nobody has beaten Bunyodkor
The unbeaten run reaches 9. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Window shuts: 11 in, 10 out at Bunyodkor
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 11 arrived, 10 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Market6 Sep 2027
Only the photograph left for Islom Anvarov
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Islom Anvarov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bunyodkor the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Shohboz Umarov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Bunyodkor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nika Kvekveskiri 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.
Market6 Sep 2027
Navbahor paid $72.0K and Bunyodkor took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Transfer targets6 Sep 2027
Bunyodkor asked and Ujpest said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match4 Sep 2027
The run is over for Bunyodkor
4 matches without defeat, and then Metallurg. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market30 Aug 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Bunyodkor have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Akmal Nematov, 15, plays like he has been here for years — 8.00
A mark of 8.00 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 15-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.93 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match28 Aug 2027
Bunyodkor make it 4 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Bunyodkor have 4 straight wins of it.
Market30 Aug 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mirkomil Murodov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Bunyodkor the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words exchanged at Bunyodkor
Shohboz Umarov 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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Aarón Martín is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Nika Kvekveskiri 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings23 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 34. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Player ratings23 Aug 2027
No sign of nerves from Antonio Arena at 18 — 7.67
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Antonio Arena did not need any: 7.67, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market23 Aug 2027
The offer from Emirates Club for Gabriel Carvalho 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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Mohammed Suhluli arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mohammed Suhluli has, at Al-Qadisiyah, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Match21 Aug 2027
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Al-Qadisiyah have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Nacho 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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
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.
Market23 Aug 2027
The phone has started ringing about Aarón Martín again, and this time the name on the line is Bunyodkor. Al-Qadisiyah are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Late improvement for Ali Hazazi
At 33 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market16 Aug 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Esteghlal Ahvaz waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Al-Qadisiyah is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
Antonio Arena, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.80
A mark of 7.80 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mahamadou Sangaré is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Koen Casteels and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market16 Aug 2027
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Qusai Al-Khaibari is a Al-Qadisiyah player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Cameron Puertas has improved at 29, 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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mohammed Abu Al-Shamat and Al-Qadisiyah agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Boardroom16 Aug 2027
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
The terraces16 Aug 2027
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.63, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad12 Apr 2027
A falling-out at Mirandés
Javi Hernàndez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The terraces12 Apr 2027
At 19 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Mirandés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Postigo 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Tomás Jakos and Mirandés agree another 3 years.
Match10 Apr 2027
A point taken on 88 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Match10 Apr 2027
A 2‑2 draw with Huesca leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Mirandés pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
Aarón Martín 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Sep 2026
Aitor Uzkudun breaks a bone — 17 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 17 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match19 Sep 2026
The small margins put Mirandés out
Out, 2‑2 to Las Palmas, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
7 saves: Igor Nikić was the team
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.
Match19 Sep 2026
6 matches without a win for Mirandés
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Mirandés are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Ali Houary, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.95
A mark of 7.95 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Pablo López beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 26. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Mirandés
Igor Nikić 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Mirandés training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nahuel Iribarren 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 ratings21 Sep 2026
Aarón Martín did the work nobody counts — 6.65
9 combined actions and 6.65. 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.