Marked for Qara Dadashov
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market15 Jan 2029
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market15 Jan 2029
“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 The request is on a desk at Khazar, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad15 Jan 2029
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.
Squad15 Jan 2029
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.
Squad15 Jan 2029
Oguzhan Omur has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Khazar 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.
Squad15 Jan 2029
The manager makes an example of Qara Dadashov
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Jan 2028
Khazar say no — this time
The offer from Shirak for Oguzhan Omur 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
“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.
Market3 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 The request is on a desk at Khazar, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad3 Jan 2028
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.
Squad3 Jan 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.
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
Wages eat 96% of everything Khazar 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Successful dribbles: 40. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match2 Oct 2027
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Fabricio Rojas will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Khazar escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 60 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
A defender's goal wins it for Khazar — 7.64
1 for Shahriyar Bayramov, marked 7.64, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad4 Oct 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Yegor Baburin and Khazar agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Mateo Ortale 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.
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 Khazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
A mark of 7.66, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Match2 Oct 2027
It needed Fabricio Rojas to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Neftchi, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market12 Jul 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 Inter, and it is not being withdrawn.
The terraces12 Jul 2027
Supporters turn on the $500.0K sale of Qara Dadashov
He is going to Khazar, the club has $500.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Market12 Jul 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Inter have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Jhon Renteria is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Tempers go at Inter
Şəhruddin Məhəmmədəliyev 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.
Market12 Jul 2027
Qara Dadashov has left for Khazar in a $500.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market12 Jul 2027
The fee is $500.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Inter drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Squad12 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.
The terraces12 Jul 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: Qara Dadashov from Inter for $500.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Mateo Ortale 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.
Market12 Jul 2027
The name of Rashad Ismayilov has come up in conversations Khazar were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad12 Jul 2027
24 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom5 Jul 2027
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Market5 Jul 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market5 Jul 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 Inter, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad5 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 Inter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Jul 2027
At 27 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Bautista Farías 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Inter are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Boardroom5 Jul 2027
Inter sign 4 boys into the academy
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
Market5 Jul 2027
Khazar are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Inter will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
In brief
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Boardroom
Inter pull $1.1M back off the table
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Market
Ramil Şeydayev linked with a move away
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Boardroom
Inter were not finished after all
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market28 Jun 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 Inter, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market28 Jun 2027
Inter get their man
The chase for Aydın Bayramov ended with $230.0K changing hands and Zira out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad28 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 Inter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Qara Dadashov 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
At 24 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Inter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Miguel Aguilar 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.
In brief
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Boardroom
Wages eat 101% of everything Inter earn
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Market
Experience through the door at Inter
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Market
Emin Khalilzade is free to find somewhere else