Marked for Birol Çavuşoğlu
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market2 Apr 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.
Squad2 Apr 2029
Words exchanged at Obod
Suhrob Eshboyev 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.
Squad2 Apr 2029
A row about effort at Obod
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nodir Fayzullaev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad2 Apr 2029
A place in the month's best eleven for Wiktor Nowicki
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Wiktor Nowicki has come out of that comparison in the side, and Obod have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Market2 Apr 2029
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Azizbek Ergashaliyev has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Obod.
Looking ahead2 Apr 2029
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Davronbek Rahmonov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Obod needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The dugout2 Apr 2029
“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.
Market2 Apr 2029
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Obod know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market2 Apr 2029
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market12 Feb 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 The request is on a desk at Obod, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets12 Feb 2029
The clock did what AGMK would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Tempers go at Obod
Odil Ismailov 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 Feb 2029
Nodir Fayzullaev 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.
Transfer targets12 Feb 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 dugout12 Feb 2029
Mario Marković has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Obod 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.
Market12 Feb 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Mario Marković’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout12 Feb 2029
Sardor Ahmedov 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 Sardor Ahmedov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market12 Feb 2029
Obod have let the market know Abdoulie Jarjue Kabia can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Sherzod Ahmedov has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Obod can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Match5 Feb 2029
Obod sink to position 14
27 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
The Obod board call everybody in
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Market5 Feb 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 Obod can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets5 Feb 2029
Everything agreed with AGMK, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Deadline passes with 2 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at Obod until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Transfer targets5 Feb 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Andijon have kept their man, and Obod go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad5 Feb 2029
At 19 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.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Words exchanged at Obod
Davronbek Rahmonov 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
Crisis
The terraces22 Jan 2029
The mood at Obod has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Boardroom22 Jan 2029
The scrutiny sharpens at Obod
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Obod is running low.
Market22 Jan 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 Obod, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets22 Jan 2029
Andijon have accepted the money. What Obod do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Squad22 Jan 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 Obod this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets22 Jan 2029
Obod asked and AGMK 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 dugout22 Jan 2029
Ozodbek Marufov back under a manager who knows him
The new man at Obod has worked with Ozodbek Marufov before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Squad22 Jan 2029
Ilhomjon Kenjayev 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.
Transfer targets22 Jan 2029
Shortan 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom8 Jan 2029
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Sherzod Ahmedov has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Match8 Jan 2029
Every point is an argument now for Obod
Position 14 and 27 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.
Boardroom8 Jan 2029
Crisis meeting at Obod
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 Jan 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 Obod, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets8 Jan 2029
The deal with Andijon is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Words exchanged at Obod
Jaloliddin Hasanov 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.
Squad8 Jan 2029
Words at Obod training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nodir Fayzullaev 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 targets8 Jan 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 dugout8 Jan 2029
Ozodbek Marufov back under a manager who knows him
The new man at Obod has worked with Ozodbek Marufov before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces17 Apr 2028
Anger at Merani 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.
Market17 Apr 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Merani they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Matheus Guimarães 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.
Boardroom17 Apr 2028
Wages eat 176% of everything Merani 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.
Squad17 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 Merani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Loan watch17 Apr 2028
“I did not go to Dynamo Kyiv to sit and watch. I want to come back to Merani and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 10 matches say the rest.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Birol Çavuşoğlu, and the manager let it.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
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 Aslan Mutaliev is on it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market28 Feb 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Merani they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Matheus Guimarães 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.
Boardroom28 Feb 2028
Merani cannot sign anybody
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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
A falling-out at Merani
Ruslan Askerov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 Feb 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 Merani know it.
The dugout28 Feb 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom14 Feb 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Merani
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad14 Feb 2028
A falling-out at Merani
Zviad Sikharulia and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Feb 2028
A row about effort at Merani
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matheus Guimarães was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
No hiding place for Grasson
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Grasson, and the manager let it.
Boardroom14 Feb 2028
The Merani debt reaches $8.1M
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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The dugout14 Feb 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.
Market14 Feb 2028
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Merani know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad14 Feb 2028
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Merani has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Emergency meeting at Merani
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
Market7 Feb 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 Merani, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 4 gone
That is the business done at Merani until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Transfer targets7 Feb 2028
The deal with Torpedo Kutaisi is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad7 Feb 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 Merani this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Feb 2028
A move Nikoloz Ninidze would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Nikoloz Ninidze is living that version at Merani, and it tends to show in the first month.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
$199.4K from the owner keeps Merani afloat
The gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
Squad7 Feb 2028
A row about effort at Merani
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matheus Guimarães was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.