Marked for Ivan Dig
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Feb 2032
A fracture rules Aldrit Oshafi out for 98 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Dinamo Brest will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market16 Feb 2032
“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.
Boardroom16 Feb 2032
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Mikalai Sivakov has agreed terms with Slutsk for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad16 Feb 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Brest this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Feb 2032
Ivan Dig 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. Ivan Dig has, at Dinamo Brest, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad16 Feb 2032
“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 Dinamo Brest know it.
Transfer targets16 Feb 2032
Dinamo Brest asked and Legia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market16 Feb 2032
Add another name to the list: Lida have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Matvey Susha. The answer from Dinamo Brest has not changed — yet.
Transfer targets16 Feb 2032
BATE have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad6 Jan 2031
Ivan Selemenev damages knee ligaments — 81 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 81 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.
Squad6 Jan 2031
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Market6 Jan 2031
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sochi 2 is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad6 Jan 2031
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Sochi 2 can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Player ratings6 Jan 2031
Zakhar Fedorov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.38. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Match4 Jan 2031
Legion made Sochi 2 work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad6 Jan 2031
Words at Sochi 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ifeanyi Ezema 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 dugout6 Jan 2031
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The dugout6 Jan 2031
Yegor Totskiy 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 Yegor Totskiy trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad30 Dec 2030
Ivan Selemenev damages knee ligaments — 88 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 88 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.
Player ratings30 Dec 2030
Successful dribbles: 26. 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 dugout30 Dec 2030
The team sheet said everything about Vsevolod Yermakov
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Vsevolod Yermakov.
Match28 Dec 2030
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout30 Dec 2030
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The dugout30 Dec 2030
“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.
Player ratings30 Dec 2030
Shots: 8, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Squad30 Dec 2030
At 26 he has taken a place rather than been given one, and somebody else has to find something to say about it. Sochi 2 have a decision that made itself.
The dugout30 Dec 2030
The plan did not have a place for Ivan Dig
Nobody at Sochi 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Dec 2030
95 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sochi 2 lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad23 Dec 2030
Words exchanged at Sochi 2
Vsevolod Yermakov 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 dugout23 Dec 2030
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Vsevolod Yermakov, and the manager let it.
Squad23 Dec 2030
Ifeanyi Ezema 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.
Match21 Dec 2030
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout23 Dec 2030
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Player ratings23 Dec 2030
Successful dribbles: 9. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout23 Dec 2030
No place in the plan for Ivan Dig
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.
Squad23 Dec 2030
At 36 he has taken a place rather than been given one, and somebody else has to find something to say about it. Sochi 2 have a decision that made itself.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad16 Dec 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ivan Selemenev
102 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sochi 2 lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market16 Dec 2030
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sochi 2 is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad16 Dec 2030
Words exchanged at Sochi 2
Yegor Totskiy 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.
Match14 Dec 2030
It finished 1‑0, and it was Zakhar Fedorov’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Sochi 2.
Squad16 Dec 2030
A row about effort at Sochi 2
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ifeanyi Ezema was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout16 Dec 2030
“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.
Player ratings16 Dec 2030
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout16 Dec 2030
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vsevolod Yermakov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout16 Dec 2030
Somebody else is better right now than Anton Makurin
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad9 Dec 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ivan Selemenev
109 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sochi 2 lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market9 Dec 2030
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sochi 2 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match7 Dec 2030
A bad afternoon for Sochi 2 against Druzhba
0‑1 to Druzhba, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings9 Dec 2030
Marked 6.83 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
The dugout9 Dec 2030
The manager makes an example of Ivan Selemenev
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout9 Dec 2030
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The dugout9 Dec 2030
Pavel Kireenko knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sochi 2, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market9 Dec 2030
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sochi 2 know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market9 Dec 2030
3 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Sochi 2 money.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match16 Nov 2030
No end in sight to Sochi 2's wait for a win
12 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Sochi 2 has to find a result from somewhere.
Market18 Nov 2030
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sochi 2 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match16 Nov 2030
Sochi 2 cannot find the net
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Match16 Nov 2030
0‑2 to Dinamo Stavropol, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout18 Nov 2030
“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.
Squad18 Nov 2030
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Vsevolod Yermakov knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
The dugout18 Nov 2030
Yegor Totskiy 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.
The dugout18 Nov 2030
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Player ratings18 Nov 2030
Successful dribbles: 10. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad4 Nov 2030
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 23 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match2 Nov 2030
The wait goes on for Sochi 2
10 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.
Squad4 Nov 2030
Vsevolod Yermakov 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 Nov 2030
“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 Sochi 2 know it.
Match2 Nov 2030
A bad afternoon for Sochi 2 against Pobeda
0‑1 to Pobeda, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad4 Nov 2030
Words at Sochi 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ifeanyi Ezema 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 dugout4 Nov 2030
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Artyom Vinogradov, and the manager let it.
The dugout4 Nov 2030
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Market4 Nov 2030
The name of Yegor Totskiy keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Sochi 2 say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Oct 2030
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match26 Oct 2030
No end in sight to Sochi 2's wait for a win
9 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Sochi 2 has to find a result from somewhere.
Market28 Oct 2030
“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.
Squad28 Oct 2030
A falling-out at Sochi 2
Yegor Totskiy and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout28 Oct 2030
The manager makes an example of Yegor Totskiy
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Match26 Oct 2030
A point taken on 93 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Match26 Oct 2030
It needed Artem Dementyev to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Angusht, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout28 Oct 2030
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Player ratings28 Oct 2030
8 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Oct 2030
A fracture rules Zakhar Fedorov out for 51 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sochi 2 will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match5 Oct 2030
6 matches without a win for Sochi 2
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Sochi 2 are no longer polite ones.
Match5 Oct 2030
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout7 Oct 2030
“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.
Player ratings7 Oct 2030
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
Squad7 Oct 2030
“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 Sochi 2 will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The dugout7 Oct 2030
Zakhar Fedorov 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 Zakhar Fedorov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad7 Oct 2030
The division's best last weekend was a Sochi 2 man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Yegor Totskiy was the best thing in any of them.
The dugout7 Oct 2030
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Sep 2030
72 days out for Zakhar Fedorov after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Sochi 2 will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market16 Sep 2030
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sochi 2 is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad16 Sep 2030
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad16 Sep 2030
Vsevolod Yermakov 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 dugout16 Sep 2030
“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.
The dugout16 Sep 2030
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Player ratings16 Sep 2030
Marked 5.22, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
Player ratings16 Sep 2030
Successful dribbles: 11. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Aug 2030
Zakhar Fedorov breaks a bone — 100 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 100 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The dugout19 Aug 2030
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad19 Aug 2030
Artem Polesovschikov 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.
The dugout19 Aug 2030
Zakhar Fedorov 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.
The dugout19 Aug 2030
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Player ratings19 Aug 2030
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match17 Aug 2030
Point won or two lost for Sochi 2?
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Dinamo Stavropol? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Player ratings19 Aug 2030
11 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.
Market19 Aug 2030
The name of Yegor Totskiy keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Sochi 2 say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Aug 2030
A fracture rules Zakhar Fedorov out for 107 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sochi 2 will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match10 Aug 2030
After 15 games, Sochi 2 finally taste it again
The first defeat in 15 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Rubin Yalta; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
The dugout12 Aug 2030
Yegor Totskiy: 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.” Sochi 2 have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market12 Aug 2030
Ivan Dig 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 Sochi 2 can pretend not to have heard.
Squad12 Aug 2030
Artyom Vinogradov is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Squad12 Aug 2030
Words at Sochi 2 training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Polesovschikov 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.
Squad12 Aug 2030
“The easiest signature of my career.” Artyom Vinogradov and Sochi 2 agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout12 Aug 2030
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.