19 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.
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Strogino lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Strogino, and it is not being withdrawn.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 Strogino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Strogino lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Timur Protasov after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
32 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sergey Guzyuk did not need any: 8.25, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Nikita Khlusov 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.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Nikita Khlusov had Strogino level again within 2 minutes, and Rotor 2 never got to play with a lead at all.
39 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Strogino lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 12 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Nikita Khlusov 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.
Position 15, 3 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Timur Protasov to a room that had heard them before.