Marked for Dmitry Popov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Jun 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad7 Jun 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 Cherepovets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Miron Belyaev knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Miron Belyaev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market7 Jun 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Cherepovets know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market7 Jun 2027
Still no offer on the table, and Watisoni Bainimoli’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Squad7 Jun 2027
The table has started to be checked before the results are in, and that is always the tell. Nobody at Cherepovets says the word out loud, and everybody in the building is thinking it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market3 May 2027
Miron Belyaev 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 Cherepovets can pretend not to have heard.
Squad3 May 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Vladimir Maklasov commits to Cherepovets for another 3 years.
Squad3 May 2027
Mikhail Karamyshev 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match19 Apr 2027
Every point is an argument now for Cherepovets
Position 15 and 15 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market19 Apr 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market19 Apr 2027
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Cherepovets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mikhail Karamyshev 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.
Market19 Apr 2027
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Squad19 Apr 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Dmitry Biryukov and Cherepovets agree another 3 years.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market4 Jan 2027
Miron Belyaev 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 Cherepovets can pretend not to have heard.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Nikola Mitrović 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Vsevolod Pershin is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market31 Aug 2026
Astrakhan come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Cherepovets did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market31 Aug 2026
Only the photograph left for David Berezov
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. David Berezov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cherepovets the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market31 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Ilja Antsiferov again, and this time the name on the line is Legion. Cherepovets are listening politely and promising nothing.
Boardroom31 Aug 2026
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. David Berezov has agreed terms with SKA Khabarovsk for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Match29 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad31 Aug 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 Cherepovets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.