Marked for Mardani Majid
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout11 Sep 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Transfer targets11 Sep 2028
Shinnik and Yenisey have settled on $150.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Boardroom11 Sep 2028
Deadline passes with 20 signed and 13 gone
That is the business done at Shinnik until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Market11 Sep 2028
Mardani Majid has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Shinnik they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Transfer targets11 Sep 2028
Shinnik had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Zenit, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Transfer targets11 Sep 2028
Shinnik asked and Ural said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Denis Mironov 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ashton McWilliams commits to Shinnik for another 4 years.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Shinnik can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market14 Aug 2028
Only the photograph left for Mardani Majid
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mardani Majid will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Shinnik the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Transfer targets14 Aug 2028
Shinnik had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Zenit, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad14 Aug 2028
A falling-out at Shinnik
Danila Yanov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Aug 2028
A row about effort at Shinnik
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yegor Smelov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets14 Aug 2028
Shinnik asked and Teplice said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match12 Aug 2028
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout14 Aug 2028
Oleg Lanin gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad14 Aug 2028
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Shinnik know it.
The dugout14 Aug 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Platon Sapunov left the room before anybody could ask which.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings24 Jul 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.72 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market24 Jul 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Shinnik can pretend not to have heard.
Market24 Jul 2028
The phone has started ringing about Kirill Nikitin again, and this time the name on the line is Krylya Sovetov. Shinnik are listening politely and promising nothing.
Boardroom24 Jul 2028
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Mardani Majid has agreed terms with Zarya Lugansk for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Match22 Jul 2028
It had gone 6 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Market24 Jul 2028
Business is business: Artem Yanin goes
Fakel paid $130.0K and Shinnik took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Match22 Jul 2028
Chernomorets made Shinnik work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Words at Shinnik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kirill Nikitin 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.
Transfer targets24 Jul 2028
Shinnik asked and Leones said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match15 Jul 2028
No end in sight to Shinnik's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Shinnik has to find a result from somewhere.
Market17 Jul 2028
“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 Shinnik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market17 Jul 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Shinnik is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market17 Jul 2028
The shirt still fits. Petr Číž is back at Shinnik, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Match15 Jul 2028
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Shinnik and Dinamo Makhachkala, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Boardroom17 Jul 2028
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Shinnik
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Kirill Nikitin 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.
Transfer targets17 Jul 2028
Shinnik asked and Teplice said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market17 Jul 2028
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Andrey Gorelov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings14 Feb 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.51 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market14 Feb 2028
“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 Shinnik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match12 Feb 2028
Shinnik make it 4 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Shinnik have 4 straight wins of it.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
Everything agreed with Akhmat Grozny, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Player ratings14 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 23. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Mikhail Schetinin 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
A row about effort at Shinnik
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kirill Nikitin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Match12 Feb 2028
Neftekhimik made Shinnik work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Nov 2027
A falling-out at Shinnik
Mikhail Schetinin and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Nov 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Shinnik are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout15 Nov 2027
“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.
Market15 Nov 2027
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Looking ahead15 Nov 2027
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Chaika in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Squad15 Nov 2027
A season on the outside for Beryly Lubala
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Shinnik has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Market15 Nov 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Shinnik know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market15 Nov 2027
Shinnik have made Danila Yanov available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
The dugout15 Nov 2027
The manager makes Leo Jusić a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Shinnik. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces11 Oct 2027
Supporters organise against the Shinnik board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
Daniil Martovoy: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Shinnik have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Too much change too quickly at Shinnik
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Artem Yanin: “I am not a substitute”
“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 Shinnik will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Looking ahead11 Oct 2027
Tyumen next, and one man in the Shinnik dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Market11 Oct 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Daniil Kornyushin’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
Artem Yanin asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market11 Oct 2027
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Danila Yanov may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Squad11 Oct 2027
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Shinnik would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market20 Sep 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Shinnik can pretend not to have heard.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Timofey Komissarov is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad20 Sep 2027
A falling-out at Shinnik
Mikhail Schetinin and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Mardani Majid arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mardani Majid has, at Shinnik, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Transfer targets20 Sep 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The terraces20 Sep 2027
He is 21 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.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
“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.
Match18 Sep 2027
Three points for Shinnik, 1‑0 the final word against Chernomorets in a contest settled by the finer margins.