26 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Two goals and a mark of 8.15 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Words at Zenit 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergey Volkov 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.
Savely Nikiforov 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.
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.
There were 89 minutes on the clock and Spartak Moscow 2 had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Zenit 2 did not stop to explain themselves.
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Zenit 2 support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Zenit 2 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Sergey Volkov 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.
At 20 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.
25 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Player ratings4 Sep 2028
A brace, and Sergey Volkov takes the afternoon — 8.81
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Sergey Volkov provided it, and the 8.81 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Denis Terentjev and Zenit 2 agree another 2 years.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Words at Zenit 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergey Volkov 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.
Savely Nikiforov 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 21 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Sergey Volkov 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zenit 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.10 — 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.
24 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Zenit 2 will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Words at Zenit 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergey Volkov 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.
12 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 64 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer from Torpedo Moscow for Yury Gorshkov was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.62 for the rest of it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Words at Zenit 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergey Volkov 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Daniil Kondakov. 2‑1 against Baltika 2, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The offer from Dinamo Moscow for Sergey Volkov was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Sergey Volkov 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.
Words at Zenit 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergey Volkov 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.
Savely Nikiforov 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.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Words at Zenit 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergey Volkov 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 92 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.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Zenit 2 may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Sergey Volkov 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.
44 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Getting past Nikita Goilo has become the hardest job in the division
14 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Zenit 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergey Volkov 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zenit 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Andrey Kasadzhikov. 2‑0 against Tver, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
14 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
Matvey Ivanov, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.04
A mark of 8.04 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Sergey Volkov 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.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Matvey Ivanov 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 complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
1 for Denis Terentjev, marked 7.35, 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.
Sergey Volkov 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.
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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Denis Terentjev had Zenit 2 level again within 4 minutes, and Spartak Moscow 2 never got to play with a lead at all.
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.
It needed Denis Terentjev to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Spartak Moscow 2, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
9 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Sergey Volkov 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
13 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The phone has started ringing about Maxim Shichanin again, and this time the name on the line is Neftekhimik. Zenit 2 are listening politely and promising nothing.
Sergey Volkov 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.
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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Yury Gorshkov has his answer from Zenit 2; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Denis Terentjev 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Danila Gaivoronskiy trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
SquadQuestions about Maxim Zaitsev on the training pitch
Position 1 and 56 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad17 May 2027
Ilja Bulygin 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.
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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zenit 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Linar Khanov did not need any: 8.18, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Zenit 2 have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Maxim Shichanin 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zenit 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A mark of 8.45 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Zenit 2 have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zenit 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It needed Konstantin Voinkov to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Torpedo Vladimir, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Nobody at Zenit 2 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.
A mark of 7.73 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
At 21 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Konstantin Voinkov. 1‑0 against Kosmos, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.