The mood at Akron 2 has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Batyrby Chermit 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Elio Gjoshi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Akron 2 is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad14 Mar 2033
Fedor Fenin 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.
Mario Ljevar 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 Akron 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Akron 2 lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Akron 2 had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Position 5 on 26 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
The words a physio says slowly. 87 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Akron 2 is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Akron 2 would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
The words a physio says slowly. 108 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.
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.
The first defeat in 10 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Zenit 2; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Victor Nafikov 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Akron 2 know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The words a physio says slowly. 122 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alexandr Chupaev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Dinamo Stavropol in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The mood at Akron 2 has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Nikita Khvat 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.
Everybody at Akron 2 saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Akron 2 will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mikhail Gainov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Something was said to Viktor Vasin and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rasul Mitsaev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Akron 2 have lost him in all but the paperwork.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.02 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Akron 2 have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
At 30 he has taken a place rather than been given one, and somebody else has to find something to say about it. Akron 2 have a decision that made itself.
Nobody at Akron 2 is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Maxim Vedeneev 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 name of Rasul Mitsaev has come up in conversations Akron 2 were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mikhail Gainov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Akron 2 needing him to play as if none of it matters.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Akron 2 have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Chertanovo waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Akron 2 is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Dinamo Makhachkala for Rasul Mitsaev was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Akron 2 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Stefan Lončar 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Stefan Lončar is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
In brief
The dugoutNikita Khvat knocks on the manager’s door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Akron 2 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Konstantin Tarnolitskiy 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.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Akron 2 could ask drops and the wages Radomir Ignashevich can ask rise.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Batyrby Chermit signs something — a contract at Akron 2 or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Akron 2 is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Akron 2 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
27 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nikita Mankov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Akron 2 the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 38 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Akron 2 is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Akron 2 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Konstantin Tarnolitskiy 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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
2 appearances and 0 goals is not a season, it is a year somebody has lost. Whether that is his fault, the borrowing club's or the people who arranged it is the argument the next few weeks will have.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Akron 2 than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Akron 2 have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Akron 2 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Orenburg moved on, Bogdan Sheiko reports back to Akron 2, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Batyrby Chermit 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.
“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 Akron 2 will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
19 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Akron 2 lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Sokol waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Akron 2 is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Orenburg moved on, Rasul Mitsaev reports back to Akron 2, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Batyrby Chermit 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.
61 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Akron 2 lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nikita Mankov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Akron 2 the goodbyes have quietly begun.
82 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Akron 2 lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Akron 2 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Nobody at Akron 2 is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
“I am not asking anybody to be better than they are. I am asking everybody to be as good as they are, every week.” Said out loud, in front of everybody, and the room at Akron 2 was different afterwards.
The words a physio says slowly. 110 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Akron 2 is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akron 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Akron 2 has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Evan Weir
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Akron 2 is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Konstantin Tarnolitskiy 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.
Shots: 4. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Akron 2 know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Akron 2 lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Akron 2 can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Eldar Tağızadə will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Akron 2 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 Akron 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
7 matches without defeat, and then Volna. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
Squad4 Aug 2031
Words at Akron 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Angus Moss 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.
The name of Rasul Mitsaev has come up in conversations Akron 2 were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Angus Moss
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Akron 2 lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 8.93 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Franck Otchere 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.
Squad28 Jul 2031
Words at Akron 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Angus Moss 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.
15 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Akron 2 can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Angus Moss was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akron 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A new face in his position, and Dmitry Teryaev suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Akron 2 have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
In brief
MarketThe clock does Artem Serikov’s negotiating for him
Words at Akron 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Angus Moss 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 Victor Nafikov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.