The Zvezda Chronicle
Match19 Aug 2026
The cup run ends for Zvezda
0‑0 against Irtysh, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Match22 Aug 2026
No end in sight to Zvezda's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Zvezda has to find a result from somewhere.
Match22 Aug 2026
Zvezda cannot find the net
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Door shut on Maxim Laikin
Zvezda asked and KAMAZ said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Igor Smirnov 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Zvezda
Denis Lebedev 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.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
The crowd has taken to Maxim Malafeev
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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
The kick that got away from Petr Timofeev
Twelve yards, a goalkeeper guessing, and it still did not go in. He will take the next one, and every soul in the ground will hold their breath.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Zvezda try to borrow Alexandr Sandrachuk
Dinamo Makhachkala have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
In brief
- Squad Arseniy Bessonov stays put
- The dugout The view from the dugout
- Player ratings Maxim Kopitets beats them one at a time