Marked for Timon Railić
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Jul 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shirak-2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match22 Jul 2028
A bad afternoon for Shirak-2 against Noah-2
1‑3 to Noah-2, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout24 Jul 2028
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Edgar Movsisyan after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Player ratings24 Jul 2028
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout24 Jul 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tigran Khachiyan, and the manager let it.
The dugout24 Jul 2028
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Shirak-2 told Gabriel Biteco something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Squad24 Jul 2028
A booking nobody needed, on a night the game was already won. Shirak-2 lose a player for the most avoidable reason there is.
Match24 Jul 2028
Continental football is in reach for Shirak-2
42 points from position 4. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
Market24 Jul 2028
1 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Shirak-2 money.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match17 Jul 2028
Shirak-2 refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 42 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad17 Jul 2028
A row about effort at Shirak-2
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vazgen Sargsyan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad17 Jul 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 Shirak-2 know it.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Grigor Ghumashyan 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.
Player ratings17 Jul 2028
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.45 on the card, and the Shirak-2 support went home talking about one name.
The dugout17 Jul 2028
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The dugout17 Jul 2028
Timon Railić 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 Timon Railić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad17 Jul 2028
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Narek Janoyan has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Market17 Jul 2028
The clock does Vazgen Sargsyan’s negotiating for him
1 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Shirak-2 could ask drops and the wages Vazgen Sargsyan can ask rise.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match19 Jun 2028
Shirak-2 refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 35 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Match17 Jun 2028
Shirak-2 cannot stop winning
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Vazgen Sargsyan 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.
Match17 Jun 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Vazgen Sargsyan’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Shirak-2.
The dugout19 Jun 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Timon Railić, and the manager let it.
Player ratings19 Jun 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.21, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match19 Jun 2028
Shirak-2 at the halfway mark
Half the programme played, position 3, 35 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
The dugout19 Jun 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Edgar Movsisyan, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout19 Jun 2028
Dirk Rasing 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad22 May 2028
Vazgen Sargsyan 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.
Match20 May 2028
Van made Shirak-2 work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings22 May 2028
A mark of 7.69, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout22 May 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Edgar Movsisyan kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The dugout22 May 2028
Timon Railić 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 Timon Railić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Player ratings22 May 2028
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
Market22 May 2028
2 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Shirak-2 could get for him.
Squad22 May 2028
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
Squad22 May 2028
Timon Railić speaks, and the room listens
“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 Shirak-2 was different afterwards.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 May 2028
A falling-out at Shirak-2
Dirk Rasing and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match13 May 2028
The goals have deserted Shirak-2
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Shirak-2 can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad15 May 2028
Vazgen Sargsyan 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.
Match13 May 2028
Urartu left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad15 May 2028
“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; Shirak-2 are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout15 May 2028
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Edgar Movsisyan after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad15 May 2028
Timon Railić: “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 Shirak-2 will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
The dugout15 May 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tigran Khachiyan, and the manager let it.
Market15 May 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Vazgen Sargsyan’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings8 May 2028
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.
Squad8 May 2028
Words exchanged at Shirak-2
Dirk Rasing 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.
Squad8 May 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Aleksa Vidić commits to Shirak-2 for another 2 years.
The dugout8 May 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Timon Railić, and the manager let it.
Squad8 May 2028
100 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Squad8 May 2028
Timon Railić is the month’s best young player
At 21 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Shirak-2 will try not to make too much of it.
Player ratings8 May 2028
Marked 7.30 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Shirak-2 had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout8 May 2028
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Edgar Movsisyan after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout8 May 2028
Dirk Rasing 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 Dirk Rasing trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match22 Apr 2028
8‑0, and Ruben Karagulyan took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Shirak-2 tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings24 Apr 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.45 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings24 Apr 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.19 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match22 Apr 2028
Shirak-2 cannot stop winning
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Player ratings24 Apr 2028
Timon Railić, 21, steals the show — 8.19
Marked 8.19 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Player ratings24 Apr 2028
A defender's goal wins it for Shirak-2 — 7.33
1 for Hovhannes Pahlevanyan, marked 7.33, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Match22 Apr 2028
Shirak-2 are at home on the road
5 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Match22 Apr 2028
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Shirak-2 and Pyunik-2, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
The terraces24 Apr 2028
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Tigran Khachiyan has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match15 Apr 2028
Shirak-2 cannot stop winning
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Words exchanged at Shirak-2
Vazgen Sargsyan 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.
Match15 Apr 2028
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Shirak-2. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
The terraces17 Apr 2028
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match15 Apr 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Gagik Akulyan’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Shirak-2.
Player ratings17 Apr 2028
Ninety minutes of Gagik Akulyan at his very best
Marked 8.20. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Shirak-2.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Edgar Movsisyan, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Market17 Apr 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Vazgen Sargsyan’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market17 Apr 2028
Shirak-2 have made Gagik Akulyan available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match8 Apr 2028
Noah-2 will want this one forgotten quickly: 10‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Shirak-2 were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Dirk Rasing takes the match ball home
4 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Squad10 Apr 2028
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.20, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Timon Railić, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.15
A mark of 8.15 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Match8 Apr 2028
Nobody wants to play Shirak-2 right now
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Aleksa Vidić goes up and wins it — 7.42
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 7.42 for the rest of it.
Match8 Apr 2028
10 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Shirak-2 and Noah-2 in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
The terraces10 Apr 2028
He is 22 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
Successful dribbles: 37. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match1 Apr 2028
Shirak-2 make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Shirak-2 have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad3 Apr 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shirak-2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces3 Apr 2028
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match1 Apr 2028
Shirak-2 keep winning on the road
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
Vazgen Sargsyan was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. 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.
Squad3 Apr 2028
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Ruben Karagulyan has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Squad3 Apr 2028
A place in the month's best eleven for Timon Railić
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Timon Railić has come out of that comparison in the side, and Shirak-2 have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
A defender's goal wins it for Shirak-2 — 7.49
1 for Aleksa Vidić, marked 7.49, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad20 Mar 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shirak-2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match18 Mar 2028
Three points for Shirak-2, 1‑0 the final word against Van-2 in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The dugout20 Mar 2028
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 1‑0, already talking about the next one.
The dugout20 Mar 2028
Ruben Karagulyan 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.
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
Shots: 21, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
Shots: 17, enough of them from close enough that a striker in form scores two. He is not a striker in form.
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
Shots: 11, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Squad20 Mar 2028
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Feb 2028
A falling-out at Shirak-2
Vazgen Sargsyan and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Hovhannes Pahlevanyan, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Feb 2028
“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.
Market14 Feb 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Vazgen Sargsyan signs something — a contract at Shirak-2 or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Squad14 Feb 2028
The competition arrived without a word said to him about it. Ruben Karagulyan keeps the shirt for now, at Shirak-2's convenience rather than his own.
Market14 Feb 2028
6 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Shirak-2 money.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market10 Jan 2028
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Hayq waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Shirak is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market10 Jan 2028
Timon Railić 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 Shirak can pretend not to have heard.
Squad10 Jan 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shirak this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market10 Jan 2028
Add another name to the list: Lernayin Artsakh have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Dedé. The answer from Shirak has not changed — yet.
Squad10 Jan 2028
“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; Shirak are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Suren Tsarukyan 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 targets10 Jan 2028
Juventude 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.
Market10 Jan 2028
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Anderson Brito has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Shirak.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Caio Lopes has outgrown this division
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Shirak know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad27 Dec 2027
Tempers go at Shirak
Rudik Mkrtchyan 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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Rafik Misakyan 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 dugout27 Dec 2027
Lyova Mryan has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Shirak will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad15 Feb 2027
A falling-out at Shirak
Rudik Mkrtchyan and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Feb 2027
9 new faces, and Shirak are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad15 Feb 2027
A row about effort at Shirak
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Augusto Galván was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
Aleksa Vidić gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Aleksa Vidić is on it.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Suren Tsarukyan trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad15 Feb 2027
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Shirak would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market8 Feb 2027
Shirak say no — this time
The offer from Liepaja for Abderrahmane Ndaw 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words exchanged at Shirak
Rafik Misakyan 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Timon Railić gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Timon Railić has just signed for Shirak, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad8 Feb 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; Shirak are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Hamlet Minasyan, and the manager let it.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Dirk Rasing and Shirak agree another 3 years.
Market8 Feb 2027
Timon Railić is 20, and Shirak have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
A door opens for Dedé
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.