Marked for Fábio Silva
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Jul 2027
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Zhetysu lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market12 Jul 2027
Alan Chochiev 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 Zhetysu can pretend not to have heard.
Market12 Jul 2027
The phone has started ringing about Mladen Kovačević again, and this time the name on the line is Ordabasy. Zhetysu are listening politely and promising nothing.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2027
Zhetysu asked and Astana said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words exchanged at Zhetysu
Askhat Baltabekov 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Fábio Silva and Zhetysu agree another 3 years.
Match10 Jul 2027
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout12 Jul 2027
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Player ratings12 Jul 2027
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market7 Jun 2027
Alan Chochiev 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 Zhetysu can pretend not to have heard.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Samandarjon Mavlonqulov 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.
Match5 Jun 2027
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout7 Jun 2027
The manager makes an example of Josué Reinatti
“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.
Player ratings7 Jun 2027
Successful dribbles: 18. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad7 Jun 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; Zhetysu are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout7 Jun 2027
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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Rinat Suyumbayev to a room that had heard them before.
Squad7 Jun 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Fábio Silva
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Fábio Silva has come out of that comparison in the side, and Zhetysu have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout7 Jun 2027
Mladen Kovačević 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
Crisis
Match1 May 2027
The wait goes on for Zhetysu
6 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.
Squad3 May 2027
Yaroslav Mikhailov 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.
Match1 May 2027
A bad afternoon for Zhetysu against Irtysh
0‑2 to Irtysh, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad3 May 2027
16 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad3 May 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; Zhetysu are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout3 May 2027
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 Rinat Suyumbayev left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad3 May 2027
Fábio Silva makes the team of the month
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout3 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Adam Adakhajiev, and the manager let it.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 14. 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
Uneasy
Squad12 Apr 2027
Askhat Baltabekov damages knee ligaments — 17 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Match7 Apr 2027
Zhetysu out of the cup
Irtysh ended it 0‑0. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Aslan Goyaev breaks a bone — 33 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 33 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zhetysu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match10 Apr 2027
The goals have deserted Zhetysu
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Zhetysu can tell you which week it ends in.
The terraces12 Apr 2027
At 22 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.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
A penalty is the one moment in football with nowhere to hide, and he did not score it. The walk back was long and the week will be longer.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match1 Aug 2026
Three points for Cascavel, 1‑0 the final word against Goiatuba in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Pedro Peçanha and Cascavel agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
“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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The clock runs on Pedro Peçanha's contract
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 9. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market3 Aug 2026
Líbano leaves for nothing
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Líbano leaves Cascavel the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.