Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Strogino will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
3 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Arseny Avvakumov will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Strogino escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Two goals and a mark of 8.49 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
4 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.
Nikita Pechenkin 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.
8.77. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings1 Dec 2036
Davit Kakabadze was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.52. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The words a physio says slowly. 44 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Strogino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Federico González 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Strogino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Marked 8.08 — 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Arseny Avvakumov had Strogino level again within 4 minutes, and Rodina M never got to play with a lead at all.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.56 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The terraces6 Oct 2036
A cup hiding at Rodina leaves Strogino explaining themselves
2-5, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings6 Oct 2036
A first appearance Semyon Ogarev will want to forget — 5.42
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.42, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Strogino is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Federico González 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.
Marked 9.10 — 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.
Position 2, 17 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Federico González 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.
It needed Marcel Hinteregger to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Metallurg, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
There were 87 minutes on the clock and Orel had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Strogino did not stop to explain themselves.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Strogino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad1 Sep 2036
Words at Strogino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tadej Petančič 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.
9.17. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
9.07. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
3 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.
24 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take 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 Strogino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 ratings4 Aug 2036
Leon Aiba was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.79. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Strogino lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Strogino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
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. Strogino will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivan Pchelintsev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Strogino the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Strogino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Nikita Pechenkin 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.
In brief
SquadLeon Aiba falls out with a teammate over standards
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Strogino can pretend not to have heard.
Nikita Pechenkin 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.
Nikita Pechenkin 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.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
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.
5 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Strogino could ask drops and the wages Youcef Douar can ask rise.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Strogino can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Strogino they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Strogino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
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.