Marked for Muhammadjon Valiyev
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Feb 2028
Sherzod Fayziyev 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.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Words exchanged at Mashal
Islom Sharipov 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Farrux Jo'rayev and Mashal agree another 2 years.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
“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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Mashal are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Window shuts: 5 in, 3 out at Mashal
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 5 arrived, 3 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad7 Feb 2028
36 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Transfer targets7 Feb 2028
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Qizilqum keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad7 Feb 2028
A falling-out at Mashal
Humoyun Murtozaev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Muhammadjon Valiyev has, at Mashal, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad7 Feb 2028
A row about effort at Mashal
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Islombek Mamatkazin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Belts tighten at Mashal
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Market7 Feb 2028
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Nodirxon Xabibullayev has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Mashal.
The dugout7 Feb 2028
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Mashal, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match10 Jul 2027
The run at home goes on for Nasaf
18 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Match10 Jul 2027
No mercy from Nasaf
Andijon will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Nasaf were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Market12 Jul 2027
“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 Nasaf, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market12 Jul 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Nasaf people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Player ratings12 Jul 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.19, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings12 Jul 2027
At 34 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.08, and nobody on the pitch better.
Market12 Jul 2027
The name of Zafarmurod Abdurahmatov has come up in conversations Nasaf were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Player ratings12 Jul 2027
7.61, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
The dugout12 Jul 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Nasaf may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“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.
Squad16 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 Nasaf this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Nasaf training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adenis Shala 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 dugout16 Nov 2026
Bahodir Halilov has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Nasaf 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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Nasaf. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Muhammadjon Valiyev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.92 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match26 Sep 2026
Nasaf make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Nasaf have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Nasaf can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Nasaf
Yusuf Otubanjo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match26 Sep 2026
Bunyodkor made Nasaf work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Adenis Shala 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 ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 2‑1, already talking about the next one.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.