Marked for Muhammadbobur Karimov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Uralets-TS have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match12 Dec 2026
6 matches without a win for Uralets-TS
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Uralets-TS are no longer polite ones.
Match12 Dec 2026
The goals have deserted Uralets-TS
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Uralets-TS can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad14 Dec 2026
A row about effort at Uralets-TS
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Akhjad Garisultanov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match12 Dec 2026
0‑2 to Orenburg 2, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Muhammadbobur Karimov, and the manager let it.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
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 Anatoly Nikolayev left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
A promise honoured at Uralets-TS
Something was said to Belinga Omgba and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Market14 Dec 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Maxim Moskovets’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Dec 2026
A fracture rules Yury Kudrevaty out for 18 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Uralets-TS will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match5 Dec 2026
5 matches without a win for Uralets-TS
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Uralets-TS are no longer polite ones.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“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 Uralets-TS know it.
Match5 Dec 2026
The goals have deserted Uralets-TS
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Uralets-TS can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Akhjad Garisultanov 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.
Match5 Dec 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Artem Krivoguzov 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 dugout7 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Maxim Gorin, and the manager let it.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Anatoly Nikolayev after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Nov 2026
A fracture rules Yury Kudrevaty out for 46 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Uralets-TS will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
No sign of nerves from Kouakou Adou at 20 — 7.60
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kouakou Adou did not need any: 7.60, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Akhjad Garisultanov 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 dugout9 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Yegor Zubarev, and the manager let it.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
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.
Match7 Nov 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Khimik leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Market9 Nov 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad19 Oct 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 69 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Ruslan Kukushbaev, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.10
A mark of 8.10 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Alexandr Chebotin is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Uralets-TS training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Akhjad Garisultanov 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 terraces19 Oct 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Ruslan Kukushbaev 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
A 1‑0 win over Akron 2, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Artem Krivoguzov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
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.” Anatoly Nikolayev kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Aug 2026
2 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Match19 Aug 2026
Cherepovets are out and Uralets-TS go through, 0‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Matviy Huihanov 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
3 matches without a goal for Uralets-TS
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Uralets-TS asked and Spartak Moscow 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 terraces24 Aug 2026
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.
Market24 Aug 2026
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Uralets-TS were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
Match22 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Orenburg 2, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.