Marked for Suleiman Kirki
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match7 Nov 2026
7 unbeaten for Nart
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Nart did not have in the autumn.
Squad9 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Nart
Alexandr Olenev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Amir Djumaev 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.
Match7 Nov 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Alexandr Olenev’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Nart.
Match9 Nov 2026
Halfway: Nart sit in position 1
34 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.66 on the card, and the Nart support went home talking about one name.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Fyodor Terekhov on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Market9 Nov 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alexandr Olenev signs something — a contract at Nart or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Market9 Nov 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Nart, another week without a signature from Evgeniy Sakuta.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
An order from above at Nart: somebody has to go
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
Squad2 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nart this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match31 Oct 2026
6 unbeaten for Nart
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Nart did not have in the autumn.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Amir Djumaev 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.
Boardroom2 Nov 2026
Wages eat 225% of everything Nart 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
After 5 games, Nart finally taste it again
The first defeat in 5 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Sochi 2; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Marked 8.02 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Market2 Nov 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad5 Oct 2026
Vyacheslav Gribov damages knee ligaments — 31 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
Nart make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Nart have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nart this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Amir Djumaev 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 291% of everything Nart 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
Angusht made Nart work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.08, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Nart can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Fyodor Terekhov kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Kurban Kurbanov out for 26 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Nart will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match19 Sep 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Astrakhan, and it could have been more.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Nart
Alexandr Olenev 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.
Transfer targets21 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Arsenal Tula have kept their man, and Nart go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Nart
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Amir Djumaev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
At 23 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Nart keep winning on the road
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Match19 Sep 2026
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Dmitry Pereverzev in the middle of it, and Astrakhan unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 7.88. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad10 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 72 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match8 Aug 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Druzhba, and it could have been more.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A brace, and Alexandr Olenev takes the afternoon — 8.51
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alexandr Olenev provided it, and the 8.51 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Nart
Alexandr Olenev 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 Aug 2026
Words at Nart training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amir Djumaev 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Maksim Samoylov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Dmitry Belov 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Vyacheslav Gribov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.