Marked for Afran Bayramov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces24 Jul 2028
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad24 Jul 2028
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dinamo Makhachkala lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match22 Jul 2028
10 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.
Player ratings24 Jul 2028
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad24 Jul 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 Dinamo Makhachkala this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Vladimir Khubulov has improved at 27, 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. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Jul 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 Dinamo Makhachkala this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom10 Jul 2028
Nosta will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Anatoly Demidov has pre-agreed a move to Dinamo Makhachkala, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad10 Jul 2028
10 new faces, and Dinamo Makhachkala are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Market10 Jul 2028
He is 20, and nobody at Dinamo Makhachkala signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Squad10 Jul 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Soslan Kagermazov, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad10 Jul 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Khazar may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Oguzhan Omur 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.
Squad10 Jul 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 Khazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Jul 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 136 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market26 Jul 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.
Squad26 Jul 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 Khazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market19 Jul 2027
Ravan come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Khazar did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Tempers go at Khazar
Cavid Nazarov 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.
Market19 Jul 2027
The Oguzhan Omur conversation is coming
Everyone has stopped pretending: Shirak will make the call about Oguzhan Omur this week. Khazar have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Jul 2027
Anton Kovalev is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Tempers go at Khazar
Cavid Nazarov 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Javid Nadirov has improved at 29, 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. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Market5 Jul 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Khazar, another week without a signature from Yegor Baburin.
Market5 Jul 2027
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Too much change too quickly at Khazar
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Jun 2027
Abiodun Toheeb is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Market21 Jun 2027
Khazar get their man
The chase for Cavid Amirguliyev ended with $370.0K changing hands and Inter out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad21 Jun 2027
At 25 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 terraces21 Jun 2027
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Cavid Amirguliyev from Inter for $370.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Market21 Jun 2027
AZAL paid $120.0K and Khazar took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad21 Jun 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 Khazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 May 2027
Rashad Ozobic damages knee ligaments — 22 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 22 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.
Squad24 May 2027
A season's verdict on Afran Bayramov: the best of his age
Khazar have a 18-year-old the division has just voted its finest young footballer. The club's next problem is that everybody else now knows it too.
Squad24 May 2027
Tempers go at Khazar
Cavid Nazarov 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.