Marked for Maxim Kondakov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Dec 2026
No end in sight to Akron 2's wait for a win
20 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Akron 2 has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match19 Dec 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match5 Dec 2026
18 matches without a win for Akron 2
The run now stands at 18, and the questions being asked around Akron 2 are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Alexandr Popov 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Semyon Zelenov 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Denis Popenkov
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Denis Popenkov has come out of that comparison in the side, and Akron 2 have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match21 Nov 2026
No end in sight to Akron 2's wait for a win
16 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Akron 2 has to find a result from somewhere.
Match21 Nov 2026
Beaten 0‑4 by Khimik, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad23 Nov 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 Akron 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nikita Chelyshev, and the manager let it.
Boardroom23 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Akron 2 dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Akron 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sevastjan Kachura 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match14 Nov 2026
The wait goes on for Akron 2
15 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.
Match16 Nov 2026
Akron 2 are in real trouble now
Position 13, 5 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 33. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 6.57 for the rest of it.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Maxim Kondakov pops up at the right end — 7.06
7.06, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Match14 Nov 2026
2‑3 to Dinamo Barnaul, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 45. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 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 Akron 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match15 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.