Marked for Nikita Gorbachev
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market1 Oct 2035
“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.
Match29 Sep 2035
Nosta make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Nosta have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad1 Oct 2035
Tempers go at Nosta
Roman Anikeev 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.
Squad1 Oct 2035
Ilnur Gabdullin 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.
Boardroom1 Oct 2035
167% of the income goes out in wages at Nosta
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
Match29 Sep 2035
Uralets-TS made Nosta work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings1 Oct 2035
Marked 8.60 — 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.
Boardroom1 Oct 2035
Nosta cannot sign anybody
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Squad1 Oct 2035
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match24 Sep 2035
Nosta are in real trouble now
Position 8, 10 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Market24 Sep 2035
“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 The request is on a desk at Nosta, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 Sep 2035
Dzmitry Savitski: 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.” Nosta have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad24 Sep 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Sep 2035
Words at Nosta training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Arseny Vainer 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 ratings24 Sep 2035
A performance of 8.60 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Match22 Sep 2035
KDV Tomsk made Nosta work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad24 Sep 2035
“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.
Player ratings24 Sep 2035
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 13 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match1 Sep 2035
The wait goes on for Nosta
14 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Market3 Sep 2035
Matej Duda hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nosta can pretend not to have heard.
Squad3 Sep 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” Arseny Vainer and Nosta agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Sep 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nosta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom3 Sep 2035
$253.5K of the owner's money at Nosta
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Squad3 Sep 2035
Words at Nosta training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilnur Gabdullin 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.
Boardroom3 Sep 2035
160% of the income goes out in wages at Nosta
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
Match1 Sep 2035
Nosta come up short against Khimik
Khimik left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Boardroom3 Sep 2035
No signings allowed at Nosta
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom22 Jan 2035
Pressure builds in the Kolomna boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market22 Jan 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kolomna can pretend not to have heard.
Market22 Jan 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kolomna is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad22 Jan 2035
Alexey Pipo in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kolomna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Jan 2035
Simon Grant knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Kolomna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market22 Jan 2035
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Kolomna could ask drops and the wages Filip Šušković-Jakopac can ask rise.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The terraces1 Jan 2035
The mood at Kolomna has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Match30 Dec 2034
Saturn will want this one forgotten quickly: 5‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Kolomna were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Match1 Jan 2035
Kolomna sink to position 11
19 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Player ratings1 Jan 2035
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 10.00, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings1 Jan 2035
Both of them Enzo Aïche's — 8.49
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.49, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings1 Jan 2035
Age has not caught Yury Klochkov yet — 8.22
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.22 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market1 Jan 2035
Nikita Smolov hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kolomna can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Jan 2035
Filip Šušković-Jakopac 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 terraces1 Jan 2035
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Marco Junuzovic 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom25 Dec 2034
Pressure builds in the Kolomna boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad25 Dec 2034
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad25 Dec 2034
Giorgos Lemonakis 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 Dec 2034
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad25 Dec 2034
The manager makes an example of Alexey Pipo
“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.
Player ratings25 Dec 2034
A performance of 8.02 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad25 Dec 2034
The team sheet said everything about Nikita Gorbachev
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Nikita Gorbachev.
Player ratings25 Dec 2034
5.39 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
Player ratings25 Dec 2034
5.38. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market18 Dec 2034
Ben Purches hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kolomna can pretend not to have heard.
Market18 Dec 2034
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Kolomna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad18 Dec 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kolomna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Dec 2034
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Filip Šušković-Jakopac, and the manager let it.
Match16 Dec 2034
0‑1 to Chertanovo, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom18 Dec 2034
The Kolomna debt reaches $5.7M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad18 Dec 2034
Arseny Popushoy has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Kolomna 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.
Market18 Dec 2034
1 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Kolomna could get for him.
Player ratings18 Dec 2034
Marked 5.33, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom27 Nov 2034
Pressure builds in the Kolomna boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad27 Nov 2034
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 18 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market27 Nov 2034
“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.
Squad27 Nov 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kolomna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match25 Nov 2034
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Enzo Aïche. 2‑1 against Tver, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings27 Nov 2034
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.71, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings27 Nov 2034
Ninety minutes of Enzo Aïche at his very best
Marked 8.45. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Kolomna.
Squad27 Nov 2034
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Yury Klochkov, and the manager let it.
Squad27 Nov 2034
When it matters, Simon Grant plays
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad20 Nov 2034
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.
Market20 Nov 2034
Ben Purches hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kolomna can pretend not to have heard.
Market20 Nov 2034
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kolomna is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad20 Nov 2034
Filip Šušković-Jakopac 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.
Boardroom20 Nov 2034
The Kolomna debt reaches $5.7M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad20 Nov 2034
Arseny Popushoy has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Kolomna 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match11 Nov 2034
16 matches without a win for Kolomna
The run now stands at 16, and the questions being asked around Kolomna are no longer polite ones.
Squad13 Nov 2034
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market13 Nov 2034
“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.
Squad13 Nov 2034
Alexey Pipo 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.
Match11 Nov 2034
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Boardroom13 Nov 2034
Kolomna cannot sign anybody
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Boardroom13 Nov 2034
133% of the income goes out in wages at Kolomna
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
Squad13 Nov 2034
The manager makes an example of Marco Junuzovic
“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.
Squad13 Nov 2034
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match4 Nov 2034
15 matches without a win for Kolomna
The run now stands at 15, and the questions being asked around Kolomna are no longer polite ones.
Squad6 Nov 2034
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom6 Nov 2034
Artyom Chekhov has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Kolomna can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Match6 Nov 2034
Kolomna are in real trouble now
Position 12, 9 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
The terraces6 Nov 2034
The mood at Kolomna has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Market6 Nov 2034
Raivis Kamess hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kolomna can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom6 Nov 2034
Crisis meeting at Kolomna
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market6 Nov 2034
Raivis Kamess has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Kolomna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad6 Nov 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kolomna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market31 Jul 2034
Yury Klochkov hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kolomna can pretend not to have heard.
Market31 Jul 2034
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Kolomna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad31 Jul 2034
Yury Klochkov 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.
Boardroom31 Jul 2034
The Kolomna debt reaches $5.6M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad31 Jul 2034
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nikita Gorbachev, and the manager let it.
Squad31 Jul 2034
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Filip Šušković-Jakopac trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Match29 Jul 2034
Point won or two lost for Kolomna?
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Zenit 2? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Squad31 Jul 2034
At 18 years old, Vlad Plyushkin became the latest name off the academy production line to be handed a senior shirt.
Market31 Jul 2034
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Arseny Popushoy’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom12 Jun 2034
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Kolomna
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market12 Jun 2034
Luka Birsa hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kolomna can pretend not to have heard.
Market12 Jun 2034
Hassan Olubode has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Kolomna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad12 Jun 2034
65 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad12 Jun 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kolomna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Jun 2034
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom3 Apr 2034
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Artyom Chekhov has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Boardroom3 Apr 2034
Crisis meeting at Kolomna
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market3 Apr 2034
“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.
Market3 Apr 2034
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kolomna is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad3 Apr 2034
Hassan Olubode 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.
Boardroom3 Apr 2034
$162.7K of the owner's money at Kolomna
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Boardroom3 Apr 2034
No signings allowed at Kolomna
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Market3 Apr 2034
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Kolomna, another week without a signature from Filip Šušković-Jakopac.
Squad3 Apr 2034
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom6 Mar 2034
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Boardroom6 Mar 2034
Crisis meeting at Kolomna
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market6 Mar 2034
“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 Kolomna, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market6 Mar 2034
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Kolomna they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad6 Mar 2034
Alexey Pipo in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kolomna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom6 Mar 2034
$167.7K of the owner's money at Kolomna
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Boardroom6 Mar 2034
No signings allowed at Kolomna
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Squad6 Mar 2034
The manager's exit leaves Ben Purches exposed
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Ben Purches is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
Squad6 Mar 2034
Kolomna will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom20 Feb 2034
The scrutiny sharpens at Kolomna
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Kolomna is running low.
Market20 Feb 2034
“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 Kolomna, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market20 Feb 2034
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kolomna is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad20 Feb 2034
Hassan Olubode 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.
Squad20 Feb 2034
Words at Kolomna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matteo Bevanati 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.
Squad20 Feb 2034
Arseny Popushoy has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Kolomna 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom6 Feb 2034
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Boardroom6 Feb 2034
Crisis meeting at Kolomna
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market6 Feb 2034
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kolomna can pretend not to have heard.
Squad6 Feb 2034
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alexey Pipo and Kolomna agree another 2 years.
Squad6 Feb 2034
Hassan Olubode 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.
Boardroom6 Feb 2034
$170.9K of the owner's money at Kolomna
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Boardroom6 Feb 2034
No signings allowed at Kolomna
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Squad6 Feb 2034
Words at Kolomna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matteo Bevanati 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.
Squad6 Feb 2034
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Filip Šušković-Jakopac's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom2 Jan 2034
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Boardroom2 Jan 2034
The Kolomna board call everybody in
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Market2 Jan 2034
“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 Kolomna, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings2 Jan 2034
Successful dribbles: 24. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Boardroom2 Jan 2034
The owner puts $176.7K into Kolomna
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Squad2 Jan 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kolomna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom2 Jan 2034
Wages eat 134% of everything Kolomna 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.
Squad2 Jan 2034
“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.
Squad2 Jan 2034
A place in the month's best eleven for Marco Junuzovic
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Marco Junuzovic has come out of that comparison in the side, and Kolomna have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market12 Dec 2033
“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.
Squad12 Dec 2033
Hassan Olubode 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 terraces12 Dec 2033
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.
Boardroom12 Dec 2033
No signings allowed at Kolomna
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Boardroom12 Dec 2033
The Kolomna debt reaches $5.7M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad12 Dec 2033
“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.
Player ratings12 Dec 2033
Marked 7.55. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Match10 Dec 2033
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad12 Dec 2033
Ben Purches knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ben Purches trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.