Marked for Gharib
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market19 Jul 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 Shamakhi can pretend not to have heard.
Market19 Jul 2027
Sumgayit come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Shamakhi did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
Everything agreed with Instituto, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Samuel Lobato 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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
A row about effort at Shamakhi
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cəlal Hüseynov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
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.
Boardroom19 Jul 2027
The numbers do not look good at Shamakhi
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.
The dugout19 Jul 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Jun 2027
A row about effort at Shamakhi
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cəlal Hüseynov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Shafa have kept their man, and Shamakhi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad7 Jun 2027
A falling-out at Shamakhi
Karim Rossi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market7 Jun 2027
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Alphonce Msanga has his answer from Shamakhi; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Squad7 Jun 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Shamakhi can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
A loan enquiry to Ferro Carril Oeste: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Gharib is no longer first choice
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Gharib has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The dugout7 Jun 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.
Market7 Jun 2027
The Hítalo talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Shamakhi know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad29 Mar 2027
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Shamakhi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market29 Mar 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 Shamakhi, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words exchanged at Shamakhi
Cəlal Hüseynov 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Eren Aydın 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.
Boardroom29 Mar 2027
Belts tighten at Shamakhi
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Filippo Dodde
“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 dugout29 Mar 2027
Edqar Adilxanov has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Shamakhi 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.
Market29 Mar 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Leroy-Jacques Mickels signs something — a contract at Shamakhi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
The manager makes Rüfət Abbasov a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Shamakhi. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market22 Mar 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Victor Guilherme will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Shamakhi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Eren Aydın 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Diogo Balau 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.
Boardroom22 Mar 2027
Wages swallow 110% of the Shamakhi 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.
Loan watch22 Mar 2027
“I did not go to DIFAI Agsu to sit and watch. I want to come back to Shamakhi and fight for my place.” 7 appearances in 31 matches say the rest.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Emil Süleymanov, and the manager let it.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
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 Arsen Ağcabəyov is on it.
Market22 Mar 2027
The name of Ricardo Apolinário keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Shamakhi say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
The manager makes Rüfət Abbasov a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Shamakhi. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Feb 2027
19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Shamakhi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Qarabag keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Market8 Feb 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 Shamakhi can pretend not to have heard.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A falling-out at Shamakhi
Cəlal Hüseynov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Gharib gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Gharib has just signed for Shamakhi, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A row about effort at Shamakhi
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Eren Aydın was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout8 Feb 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.
Market8 Feb 2027
The João Pedro story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until João Pedro signs something — a contract at Shamakhi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout8 Feb 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.