Andrey Zaitsev 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.
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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Zvezda will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
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 Danila Rulev is on it.
A brace, and Mark Polushin takes the afternoon — 9.10
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mark Polushin provided it, and the 9.10 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Mark Polushin 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mikhail Mamonov 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.
“I watch every Zvezda game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Uralets-TS runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Zvezda can pretend not to have heard.
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.
He is 22 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mikhail Lukjanov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Denis Lebedev is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Out, 0‑3 to Lokomotiv Moscow, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Andrey Zaitsev 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.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
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 0‑2 Georgy Goryachev left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Zvezda training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mikhail Lukjanov 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.13 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Iljas Abdullaev did not need any: 8.12, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Andrey Zaitsev 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.
He is 23 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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Mark Polushin in the middle of it, and Kolomna unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Zvezda, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.