“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 The request is on a desk at Chaika, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ivan Lapitskiy will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Chaika the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Ivan Lapitskiy has agreed terms with Spartak Kostroma for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chaika this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Words at Chaika training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxim Karpov 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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 The request is on a desk at Chaika, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chaika 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.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Words at Chaika training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxim Karpov 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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Words at Chaika training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxim Karpov 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chaika this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Artem Sokolov signs something — a contract at Chaika or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
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.
Stanislav Biblyk 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 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Chaika training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dmitry Ivannikov 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.
Ivan Lapitskiy is 20, and Chaika have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
“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 Yenisey 2, and it is not being withdrawn.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Semyon Musaev is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Danil Ambrosenok 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Zakhar Terpugov signs something — a contract at Yenisey 2 or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Yenisey 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladimir Shavkunov 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Zakhar Terpugov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 Yenisey 2, and it is not being withdrawn.
Zakhar Terpugov 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Ivan Oborocha 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Yenisey 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Ivan Oborocha is 20, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
Ivan Oborocha, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.95
A mark of 7.95 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Yenisey 2 and Torpedo Vladimir, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
It needed Zakhar Terpugov to find the net to bring anything home at all: 3‑3 against Torpedo Vladimir, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Yenisey 2 will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vladislav Skavysh trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.