Marked for Alexandr Andreev
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Dec 2040
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Moscow can pretend not to have heard.
Market3 Dec 2040
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Moscow is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad3 Dec 2040
Rubens pulls a muscle — 14 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Player ratings3 Dec 2040
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad3 Dec 2040
Tancredi Vella 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.
Squad3 Dec 2040
Rubens 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.
Squad3 Dec 2040
“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.
Match1 Dec 2040
A 2‑1 win over Torpedo Moscow, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings3 Dec 2040
Marked 8.11 — 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings19 Nov 2040
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.01, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market19 Nov 2040
Only the photograph left for Ruben Barrett
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ruben Barrett will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dinamo Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match17 Nov 2040
No end in sight to Dinamo Moscow's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Dinamo Moscow has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad19 Nov 2040
Tancredi Vella 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 Nov 2040
Rubens 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.
Player ratings19 Nov 2040
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad19 Nov 2040
13 new faces, and Dinamo Moscow are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Match17 Nov 2040
It needed Alexandr Andreev to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Zenit, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Squad19 Nov 2040
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market12 Nov 2040
Dylan Martínez has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad12 Nov 2040
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Dinamo Moscow may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad12 Nov 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Nov 2040
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jure Birsa commits to Dinamo Moscow for another 4 years.
Squad12 Nov 2040
Words at Dinamo Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rubens 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 ratings12 Nov 2040
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom12 Nov 2040
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Dinamo Moscow now.
Player ratings12 Nov 2040
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.56 on the card, and the Dinamo Moscow support went home talking about one name.
Match10 Nov 2040
A 1‑1 draw with Ufa leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 Sep 2040
Həbib Hüşənov breaks a bone — 25 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market10 Sep 2040
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Moscow can pretend not to have heard.
Market10 Sep 2040
Paul Roussel has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom10 Sep 2040
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Giovanni Mattioli has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad10 Sep 2040
Tancredi Vella 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.
Match8 Sep 2040
Sochi left with the points after a 3‑4 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Match8 Sep 2040
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Dinamo Moscow and Sochi, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad10 Sep 2040
Rubens 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.
Squad10 Sep 2040
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Sebastian Trimmel commits to Dinamo Moscow for another 3 years.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad20 Aug 2040
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad20 Aug 2040
Həbib Hüşənov breaks a bone — 46 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 46 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom20 Aug 2040
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Dinamo Moscow now.
Match18 Aug 2040
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Market20 Aug 2040
“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.
Squad20 Aug 2040
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Dinamo Moscow may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings20 Aug 2040
A defender's goal wins it for Dinamo Moscow — 7.85
1 for Jure Birsa, marked 7.85, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Player ratings20 Aug 2040
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad20 Aug 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match11 Aug 2040
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Alexandr Andreev scored in the 88th minute, SKA Khabarovsk had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Dinamo Moscow took the lot.
Match11 Aug 2040
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Market13 Aug 2040
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Moscow is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Boardroom13 Aug 2040
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Player ratings13 Aug 2040
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad13 Aug 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Aug 2040
Words at Dinamo Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rubens 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.
Squad13 Aug 2040
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nicholas Eyeh, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 May 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 May 2040
Rubens 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.
Squad28 May 2040
Gabriel Marcon gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Gabriel Marcon has just signed for Dinamo Moscow, and for once the answer mattered.
Boardroom28 May 2040
The numbers do not look good at Dinamo Moscow
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.
Squad28 May 2040
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alexandr Andreev, and the manager let it.
Market28 May 2040
Josip Silić is 40 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market12 Mar 2040
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dinamo Moscow is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad12 Mar 2040
German Ignatov: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Dinamo Moscow have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom12 Mar 2040
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Marat Apshatsev has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad12 Mar 2040
Nicolás Marichal 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 Mar 2040
Words at Dinamo Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rubens 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 Mar 2040
“The easiest signature of my career.” Alexandr Andreev and Dinamo Moscow agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Boardroom12 Mar 2040
Wages eat 96% of everything Dinamo Moscow 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.
Market12 Mar 2040
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Thomas Simon’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market12 Mar 2040
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Timofey Mitrov leaves Dinamo Moscow the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match27 Feb 2040
Position 1 and 69 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Match22 Feb 2040
Krasnodar go through and Dinamo Moscow go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Market27 Feb 2040
“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 Dinamo Moscow, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad27 Feb 2040
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Boardroom27 Feb 2040
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Nikolay Titkov has agreed terms with Krylya Sovetov for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad27 Feb 2040
Nicolás Marichal 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.
Squad27 Feb 2040
Words at Dinamo Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rubens 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 ratings27 Feb 2040
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad27 Feb 2040
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Timofey Mitrov commits to Dinamo Moscow for another 1 years.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad6 Feb 2040
Hélder Faria damages knee ligaments — 23 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Match4 Feb 2040
The run at home goes on for Dinamo Moscow
16 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad6 Feb 2040
452 appearances across 16 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Squad6 Feb 2040
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad6 Feb 2040
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Dinamo Moscow may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings6 Feb 2040
Beat anybody else and it is three points. Beat them and it is a story a city tells for a decade. Dinamo Moscow have their man.
Market6 Feb 2040
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom6 Feb 2040
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Ibragim Umarov has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match4 Jan 2040
A 1‑0 win over Baltika, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Squad9 Jan 2040
Hélder Faria damages knee ligaments — 53 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 53 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.
Squad9 Jan 2040
Yago Cantero breaks a bone — 96 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 96 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match7 Jan 2040
Whatever happens, Dinamo Moscow do not lose
12 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match7 Jan 2040
Dinamo Moscow make home a hard place to visit
14 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Player ratings9 Jan 2040
Age has not caught Victor Okishor yet — 8.14
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.14 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market9 Jan 2040
“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.
Squad9 Jan 2040
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nicolás Marichal and Dinamo Moscow agree another 2 years.
Squad9 Jan 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match2 Jan 2040
59 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Match31 Dec 2039
The unbeaten run reaches 10. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad2 Jan 2040
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Dinamo Moscow have had the benefit of it.
Player ratings2 Jan 2040
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.99 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market2 Jan 2040
Alexey Dayneko has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad2 Jan 2040
“The easiest signature of my career.” Nicolás Marichal and Dinamo Moscow agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad2 Jan 2040
Nicolás Marichal 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.
Market2 Jan 2040
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Dinamo Moscow heard it as anything else.
Player ratings2 Jan 2040
Two of the goals had his name somewhere on them, which is the afternoon a manager wants from anybody asked to both create and finish. 7.94, and 2 involvements.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad28 Feb 2039
Maxim Kondakov damages knee ligaments — 90 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 90 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.
Match23 Feb 2039
2‑4 against Lokomotiv Moscow, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad28 Feb 2039
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match23 Feb 2039
4 matches without a win for Dinamo Moscow
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Dinamo Moscow are no longer polite ones.
Squad28 Feb 2039
Nicolás Marichal 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.
Match23 Feb 2039
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Dinamo Moscow and Lokomotiv Moscow in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad28 Feb 2039
Words at Dinamo Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rubens 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 ratings28 Feb 2039
Paul Roussel ran the middle of the pitch — 7.25
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 7.25, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Player ratings28 Feb 2039
There was no pressure on him and nowhere he had to be. Dinamo Moscow lost a goal to a decision that took half a second and will be discussed all week.