Marked for Luca Maccheroni
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Jul 2029
The knee: Elvin Camalov out for 104 days
104 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sumgayit lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad9 Jul 2029
136 days out for Bədavi Hüseynov after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Sumgayit will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market9 Jul 2029
“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.
Transfer targets9 Jul 2029
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Gabala is saying, and nobody at Sumgayit is enjoying the guessing.
Transfer targets9 Jul 2029
The deal with Ludogorets is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad9 Jul 2029
“The easiest signature of my career.” Agil Mammadov and Sumgayit agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Ronaldo Vásquez 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.
Transfer targets9 Jul 2029
Sumgayit asked and AZAL said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Boardroom9 Jul 2029
Wages eat 90% of everything Sumgayit earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Mar 2029
Rachid Moumini 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.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Words at Sumgayit training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleksa Janković 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 dugout19 Mar 2029
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 dugout19 Mar 2029
“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.
Market19 Mar 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Rüstəm Əhmədzadə’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout19 Mar 2029
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sumgayit, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market19 Mar 2029
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Ayxan Süleymanlı may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
The dugout19 Mar 2029
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Rachid Moumini plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
Boardroom19 Mar 2029
Sumgayit keep producing them
38 graduates from an academy now rated 9 out of 20. A club this size does not survive any other way, and every name on that list is known in the town.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Mar 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sumgayit this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Words at Sumgayit training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Səbuhi Abdullazadə 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 dugout12 Mar 2029
Ronaldo Vásquez has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Sumgayit 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.
Market12 Mar 2029
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sumgayit know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Match12 Mar 2029
Sumgayit in the hunt for Europe
Position 5, 22 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Nihat Əhmədzadə 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 Sumgayit have no good answer.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad27 Nov 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad27 Nov 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 Sumgayit this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Words at Sumgayit training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Səbuhi Abdullazadə 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.
Match25 Nov 2028
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad27 Nov 2028
At 33 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑3, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Player ratings27 Nov 2028
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.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
Cédric Badolo 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 Cédric Badolo is on it.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
Sumgayit pick somebody else ahead of Rhuan
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
Steady
Squad25 Sep 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 101 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Ronaldo Vásquez 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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
A row about effort at Sumgayit
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Səbuhi Abdullazadə was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad25 Sep 2028
At 33 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Match23 Sep 2028
Zira left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout25 Sep 2028
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout25 Sep 2028
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.
Player ratings25 Sep 2028
Successful dribbles: 14. 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 dugout25 Sep 2028
Rhuan dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad11 Sep 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Aleksa Janković
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sumgayit lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad11 Sep 2028
115 days out for Nikola Ninković after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Sumgayit will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Match9 Sep 2028
Still nobody has beaten Sumgayit
The unbeaten run reaches 9. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad11 Sep 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 Sumgayit this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Sep 2028
A row about effort at Sumgayit
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bədavi Hüseynov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match9 Sep 2028
Sumgayit make home a hard place to visit
8 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 ratings11 Sep 2028
Keffel stands above it all
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.39 on the card, and the Sumgayit support went home talking about one name.
Market11 Sep 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sumgayit, another week without a signature from Ayxan Süleymanlı.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 Jul 2028
Aleksa Janković damages knee ligaments — 91 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 91 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.
Market10 Jul 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sumgayit can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets10 Jul 2028
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Sumgayit have done the hard part with Colón, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Words exchanged at Sumgayit
Rachid Moumini 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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Matteo Lucchini is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad10 Jul 2028
At 26 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
Transfer targets10 Jul 2028
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. PAOK have kept their man, and Sumgayit go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets10 Jul 2028
Podbrezova 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.
The dugout10 Jul 2028
Keffel has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Sumgayit 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.