“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Obod can pretend not to have heard.
Jaloliddin Suyunov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdulla Suyunov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
Nemanja Ilić is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 6 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nodir Tukhtasinov 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.
“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.
The dugout1 May 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑4 defeat, delivered by Islom Komilov to a room that had heard them before.
18 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Obod will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Sherzodbek Abduraimov 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 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 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 Obod know it.
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Obod lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Obod have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Filip Sredojević 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giorgi Chekhani 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 words a physio says slowly. 58 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.
“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 Obod, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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 Obod know it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Obod this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Obod lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Obod can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at Obod 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.
Obod asked and Bukhara said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaloliddin Suyunov 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Obod can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The words a physio says slowly. 94 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.
Obod had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Shortan, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Everything agreed with Pakhtakor, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bunyodkor have kept their man, and Obod go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jaloliddin Suyunov 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Obod this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
102 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Obod lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Islom Komilov has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Obod can pretend not to have heard.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
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.
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Obod lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Islom Komilov has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 11 arrived, 9 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Obod this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Giorgi Chekhani is living that version at Obod, and it tends to show in the first month.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jaloliddin Suyunov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Giorgi Chekhani is 19, and Obod 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.
In brief
The dugoutNemanja Ilić without the man who signed him