Marked for Ezechiel Allamine
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Feb 2028
“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.
Market7 Feb 2028
The offer from Kvant for Konstantin Kotov 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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Khachim Mashukov 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings10 Jan 2028
Innokentiy Sapunov, 15, plays like he has been here for years — 8.17
A mark of 8.17 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 15-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Ismail Zhaboev: 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.” Spartak Nalchik have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market10 Jan 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Spartak Nalchik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Khachim Mashukov 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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Spartak Nalchik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladimir Shaikhutdinov 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 terraces10 Jan 2028
At 15 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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
“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 Spartak Nalchik know it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market13 Dec 2027
“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 Spartak Nalchik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match11 Dec 2027
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Spartak Nalchik are no longer polite ones.
Squad13 Dec 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 Nalchik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Dec 2027
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.
Squad13 Dec 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Islam Pekov, and the manager let it.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.70 on the card, and the Spartak Nalchik support went home talking about one name.
Match11 Dec 2027
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
4.85 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market15 Nov 2027
“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.
Match13 Nov 2027
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad15 Nov 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 Nalchik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Khakim Kadykoev 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.
Match13 Nov 2027
Nart made Spartak Nalchik work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings15 Nov 2027
Khachim Mashukov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.05. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match2 Oct 2027
9 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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Islam Tlupov commits to Spartak Nalchik for another 2 years.
Squad4 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 Nalchik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Khakim Kadykoev 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 Oct 2027
Wages eat 133% of everything Spartak Nalchik 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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Islam Pekov, and the manager let it.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Marked 7.71. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Match2 Oct 2027
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match11 Sep 2027
Beaten 0‑3 by Sochi 2, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Match11 Sep 2027
No end in sight to Spartak Nalchik's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Spartak Nalchik has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad13 Sep 2027
“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 Spartak Nalchik know it.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Khachim Mashukov 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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Words at Spartak Nalchik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khakim Kadykoev 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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Aslan Aushev commits to Spartak Nalchik for another 3 years.
Boardroom13 Sep 2027
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Market13 Sep 2027
Kuban Holding are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Spartak Nalchik will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Market13 Sep 2027
At 35, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 Jun 2027
A fracture rules Hassan Abakar out for 24 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Stars Jeunes Talents will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market7 Jun 2027
“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.
Market7 Jun 2027
Saleh Mahamat has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Stars Jeunes Talents they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Hassan Abakar 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 Jun 2027
Words at Stars Jeunes Talents training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Narcisse Adoum 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Hassan Abakar 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Stars Jeunes Talents training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ali Tokindang 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Stars Jeunes Talents have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Hassan Abakar knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hassan Abakar trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.