Marked for Tim Cacace
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Aug 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 Atyrau this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Rinat Zhūmatov 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.
Squad14 Aug 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Tim Cacace and Atyrau agree another 3 years.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad18 Oct 2027
Tempers go at Atyrau
Oleksandr Noiok 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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
The manager makes an example of El'khan Astanov
“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.
Squad18 Oct 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tim Cacace and Atyrau agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market4 Oct 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 The request is on a desk at Atyrau, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Oleksandr Noiok commits to Atyrau for another 2 years.
Squad4 Oct 2027
43 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
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 Atyrau this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Egor Khvalko has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Atyrau 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.
Market4 Oct 2027
The name of Abylaikhan Zhūmabek keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Atyrau say nothing, which says plenty.
In brief
-
Market
11 months and counting on Tim Cacace
-
Boardroom
The Atyrau production line keeps running
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad6 Sep 2027
Sayed Abu Farchi: 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.” Atyrau have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad6 Sep 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 Atyrau this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Kotaro Omori 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad6 Sep 2027
Chris De Vries is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Francis McCowatt has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Dane Colvey 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.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Bill Just has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Hawke's Bay United have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.