Marked for Syaiful Asri
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom4 Feb 2030
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Artyom Sidorov has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Match4 Feb 2030
Kuban refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 19 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Market4 Feb 2030
Kuban say no — this time
The offer from Kvant for Ruslan Gavrilov 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.
Squad4 Feb 2030
62 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad4 Feb 2030
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Sergey Terekhov commits to Kuban for another 2 years.
Squad4 Feb 2030
Tempers go at Kuban
Alexandr Kulikov 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.
Squad4 Feb 2030
Sergey Terekhov 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.
Boardroom4 Feb 2030
The owner puts $385.3K into Kuban
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Market4 Feb 2030
Kaluga are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Kuban will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom7 Jan 2030
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Artyom Sidorov has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market7 Jan 2030
“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 The request is on a desk at Kuban, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match7 Jan 2030
Kuban refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 19 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad7 Jan 2030
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Kuban will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad7 Jan 2030
Syaiful Asri: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Kuban have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad7 Jan 2030
Tempers go at Kuban
Ilja Molteninov 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.
Squad7 Jan 2030
Sergey Terekhov 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.
Boardroom7 Jan 2030
The owner puts $381.8K into Kuban
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Market7 Jan 2030
6 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
In brief
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Market
Still no signature from Alexey Polesskiy
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Boardroom
Kuban were not finished after all
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Boardroom
The Kuban production line keeps running
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Oct 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ilja Molteninov
51 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kuban lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market22 Oct 2029
Only the photograph left for Lucas Daniel
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lucas Daniel will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Kuban the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad22 Oct 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 Kuban this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Oct 2029
Words at Kuban training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergey Terekhov 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.
Squad22 Oct 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.
Player ratings22 Oct 2029
A mark of 7.64, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Match20 Oct 2029
Kuban draw a blank against Murom
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Murom defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Market22 Oct 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Ilja Molteninov’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Player ratings22 Oct 2029
Successful dribbles: 11. 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
Squad24 Sep 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ilja Molteninov
79 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kuban lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad24 Sep 2029
A fracture rules Karolis Satkus out for 22 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Kuban will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings24 Sep 2029
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.22, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market24 Sep 2029
Only the photograph left for Lucas Daniel
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lucas Daniel will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Kuban the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad24 Sep 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 Kuban this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Words at Kuban training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergey Terekhov 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.
Player ratings24 Sep 2029
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.
Match22 Sep 2029
It needed Gleb Bakharev to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Torpedo Miass, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Market24 Sep 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Ilja Molteninov’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad20 Nov 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Kuban may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market20 Nov 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ruslan Gavrilov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Kuban the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad20 Nov 2028
Tempers go at Kuban
Ilja Molteninov 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad26 Jun 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Igor Tursunov
59 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kuban lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom26 Jun 2028
The scrutiny sharpens at Kuban
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Kuban is running low.
Match26 Jun 2028
Kuban are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 22 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.