Marked for Daniil Kondakov
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Jun 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Maxim Glushenkov and Zenit agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad12 Jun 2028
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 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market12 Jun 2028
Pedro wants more than Zenit are offering
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad12 Jun 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Daniil Kondakov, and the manager let it.
Market12 Jun 2028
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Zenit know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Alexandr Sobolev has seen what the next man earns
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Zenit that is a harder question to answer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
Zenit have won it
This is the season the town will measure the next twenty against. The trophy travels home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.
Squad5 Jun 2028
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Zenit will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Market5 Jun 2028
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Tempers go at Zenit
Alexandr Sobolev 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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
The medical room confirms 36 days on the sidelines for Henrique Carmo, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
$9.8M on the table at Zenit
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad22 May 2028
Alexandr Zhirov 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.
Squad22 May 2028
Oleg Shalaev gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad22 May 2028
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alexandr Dolgov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom8 May 2028
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Bogdan Cheryshev has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market8 May 2028
“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 Chelyabinsk, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad8 May 2028
Denis Samoilov: 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.” Chelyabinsk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad8 May 2028
He is 20, he is averaging 7.18, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Squad8 May 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alexandr Zhirov and Chelyabinsk agree another 2 years.
Squad8 May 2028
Alexandr Zhirov 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Apr 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chelyabinsk can pretend not to have heard.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Baba N'Diaye: 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.” Chelyabinsk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad10 Apr 2028
He is 20, he is averaging 7.18, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad13 Mar 2028
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Chelyabinsk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad13 Mar 2028
A season average of 7.18 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Chelyabinsk know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Alexandr Zhirov 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Feb 2028
He is 19, he is averaging 7.16, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Market14 Feb 2028
Emir Tonbul 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 Chelyabinsk can pretend not to have heard.
Match12 Feb 2028
5 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Alexandr Zhirov 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
“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 ratings14 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market14 Feb 2028
He is 20, and nobody at Chelyabinsk signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Squad14 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 Chelyabinsk, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
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.
Market7 Feb 2028
“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 Chelyabinsk, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 Feb 2028
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Chelyabinsk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match5 Feb 2028
No end in sight to Chelyabinsk's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Chelyabinsk has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad7 Feb 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chelyabinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
A mark of 7.68, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Player ratings7 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market7 Feb 2028
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Denis Pokotylo has his answer from Chelyabinsk; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Baba N'Diaye gets it from the manager
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match15 Jan 2028
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 10 matches without defeat is a foundation Chelyabinsk did not have in the autumn.
Squad17 Jan 2028
At 19, Daniil Kondakov is already the best thing here
An average of 7.12 in a first team he is several years too young for. Chelyabinsk have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
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.
Squad17 Jan 2028
14 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Alexandr Zhirov 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.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Patrick gets it from the manager
“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 ratings17 Jan 2028
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings17 Jan 2028
Marked 7.73 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Chelyabinsk had the best player on the pitch.
The terraces17 Jan 2028
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad20 Dec 2027
He is 19, he is averaging 7.05, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Squad20 Dec 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chelyabinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match18 Dec 2027
Ufa made Chelyabinsk work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Match18 Dec 2027
Still nobody has beaten Chelyabinsk
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.21, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad20 Dec 2027
“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 ratings20 Dec 2027
Marked 8.66 — 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.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.26, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
One lapse, one goal, and ninety minutes of honest work counting for nothing. That is the job at Chelyabinsk, and it is a cruel one.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad20 Sep 2027
Alexandr Zhirov 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.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.82, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad20 Sep 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Khetag Kochiev, and the manager let it.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Marked 8.01 — 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
14 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Match18 Sep 2027
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market6 Sep 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 Zenit, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match4 Sep 2027
Zenit make it 5 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Zenit have 5 straight wins of it.
Market6 Sep 2027
Maxim Glushenkov wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Zenit hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Tempers go at Zenit
Luiz Henrique 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.
Match4 Sep 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Nino. 3‑1 against Arsenal Tula, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings6 Sep 2027
Nino in the eights
A performance of 9.11 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings6 Sep 2027
A performance of 9.07 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Market6 Sep 2027
The name of Vadim Shilov has come up in conversations Zenit were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Player ratings6 Sep 2027
Jhon Jhon runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Aug 2027
A one-man rearguard from Denis Adamov
There were 9 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.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Nobody could get near Jhon Jhon
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market9 Aug 2027
Zenit say no — this time
The offer from Orenburg for Román Vega 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.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Tempers go at Zenit
Luiz Henrique 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.
Match7 Aug 2027
Whatever happens, Zenit do not lose
6 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 Aug 2027
Sochi made Zenit work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alexandr Sobolev, and the manager let it.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
A performance of 8.91 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
A performance of 8.63 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings26 Jul 2027
Successful dribbles: 35. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market26 Jul 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chelyabinsk can pretend not to have heard.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Khetag Kochiev: 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.” Chelyabinsk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Alexandr Zhirov 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.
Match24 Jul 2027
Shinnik left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings26 Jul 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.35, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Yan Gudkov gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Ilja Tuseev lets one through his hands
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Player ratings26 Jul 2027
5.52 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match5 Jul 2027
Zenit up to position 1
59 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market5 Jul 2027
Zenit say no — this time
The offer from Orenburg for Yaroslav Mikhailov 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
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 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market5 Jul 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Zenit know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Robert Renan 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 Zenit, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad5 Jul 2027
A season on the outside for Robert Renan
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Zenit has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.