Marked for Artem Chudakov
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match6 Nov 2027
Spartak Moscow make home a hard place to visit
19 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Market8 Nov 2027
Artem Chudakov has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Spartak Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match6 Nov 2027
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Alexandr Maximenko 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.
Match6 Nov 2027
After 4 games, Spartak Moscow finally taste it again
The first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Orenburg; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Squad8 Nov 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Thiago Galhardo and Spartak Moscow agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Match8 Nov 2027
31 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
Squad8 Nov 2027
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Squad8 Nov 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Victor Parada
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Victor Parada has come out of that comparison in the side, and Spartak Moscow have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match23 Oct 2027
Spartak Moscow make home a hard place to visit
18 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Match25 Oct 2027
27 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market25 Oct 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Spartak Moscow can pretend not to have heard.
Match23 Oct 2027
Nobody wants to play Spartak Moscow right now
3 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.
Market25 Oct 2027
Only the photograph left for Roman Frolov
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Roman Frolov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartak Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad25 Oct 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Victor Parada and Spartak Moscow agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad25 Oct 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 Spartak Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match23 Oct 2027
It finished 1‑0, and it was Jhon Córdoba’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Spartak Moscow.
Squad25 Oct 2027
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
In brief
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Player ratings
Anton Zinkovskiy was on a different afternoon to everybody else
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Player ratings
Jhon Córdoba beats them one at a time
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market11 Oct 2027
Artem Chudakov has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Spartak Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Christopher Martins Pereira 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.
Looking ahead11 Oct 2027
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. CSKA Moscow on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
Squad11 Oct 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Dmitry Shopin and Spartak Moscow agree another 4 years.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
Nobody at Spartak Moscow 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.
Loan watch11 Oct 2027
“For the first time in years I am picked because somebody wants me in the team.” Spartak Kostroma suits him; the awkward conversation belongs to Spartak Moscow, and the summer will force it.
Market11 Oct 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Christopher Martins Pereira’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Daniil Denisov wants to know why he earns less
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Spartak Moscow have no good answer.
Loan watch11 Oct 2027
The goals keep arriving from Vadim Tsygankov’s exile
4 goals in 10 games at Ryazan — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Spartak Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market13 Sep 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Match11 Sep 2027
Spartak Moscow make home a hard place to visit
14 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
Ilja Ivarlak, 18, steals the show — 8.32
Marked 8.32 at 18, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Makar Vysochenko is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Boardroom13 Sep 2027
Window shuts: 13 in, 22 out at Spartak Moscow
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 13 arrived, 22 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Market13 Sep 2027
Only the photograph left for Artem Chudakov
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Artem Chudakov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartak Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Transfer targets13 Sep 2027
Spartak Moscow asked and TSG Hoffenheim said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The terraces13 Sep 2027
At 18 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market30 Aug 2027
The offer from Ural for Nail Umyarov 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.
Transfer targets30 Aug 2027
Spartak Moscow had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at FCSB, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Match28 Aug 2027
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 8 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Artem Chudakov is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Squad30 Aug 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 Spartak Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets30 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. PSV have kept their man, and Spartak Moscow go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match28 Aug 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Market30 Aug 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Spartak Moscow have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
The dugout30 Aug 2027
The manager makes an example of Jhon Córdoba
“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.
In brief
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Boardroom
Nobody left the Spartak Moscow dressing room in a hurry
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Squad
5 Spartak Moscow players away with their countries
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market16 Aug 2027
Ural come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Spartak Moscow did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market16 Aug 2027
The name of Nail Umyarov has come up in conversations Spartak Moscow were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market16 Aug 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Spartak Moscow is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match14 Aug 2027
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Jhon Córdoba in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
Looking ahead16 Aug 2027
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Spartak Moscow will be judged on one thing only.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Match14 Aug 2027
A 1‑1 draw with Lokomotiv Moscow leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match24 Jul 2027
Derby days make names, and Jhon Córdoba made his against Zenit. 1‑0, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
Market26 Jul 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Spartak Moscow have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Match24 Jul 2027
Nobody wants to play Spartak Moscow 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 ratings26 Jul 2027
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Spartak Moscow support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
Player ratings26 Jul 2027
Nail Umyarov ran the middle of the pitch — 7.15
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 15 combined actions and a mark of 7.15, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The dugout26 Jul 2027
The manager makes an example of Alexander Djiku
“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 dugout26 Jul 2027
“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 dugout26 Jul 2027
Jhon Córdoba 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 Jhon Córdoba is on it.
The dugout26 Jul 2027
Somebody else is better right now than Thiago Galhardo
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
Upbeat
Market21 Jun 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Krasnodar waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Spartak Moscow is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market21 Jun 2027
Racing Club pay $20.0M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Market21 Jun 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market21 Jun 2027
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The terraces21 Jun 2027
Supporters turn on the $20.0M sale of Mirlind Daku
He is going to Racing Club, the club has $20.0M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Artem Chudakov is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Squad21 Jun 2027
A club from his own country has asked the question, and he has never pretended he did not want to be asked. Spartak Moscow have a conversation ahead of them that they will not win with money.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igor Dmitriev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2027
Spartak Moscow asked and Krylya Sovetov said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.