José Acosta 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.
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.
At 22 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ravan can pretend not to have heard.
Alexei Gorbachev 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Tord Salte 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad28 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Ravan 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.
Rashad Khalilzade 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.
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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Ravan, and 1 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
0‑1 against Kapaz, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 10 of the 28 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Alexei Gorbachev did not need any: 8.30, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ravan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexei Gorbachev 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.
At 23 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.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Gabala the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Ravan will enjoy reviewing.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ravan can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ravan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tord Salte 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 young player of the month award goes to a 20-year-old at Ravan who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ravan can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ravan this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexei Gorbachev 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
The offer from Sumgayit for Renat Garayev 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.
“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 Ravan, and it is not being withdrawn.
José Acosta 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.
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.
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 9 of the 28 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A first appearance Orkhan Medvedev will want to forget — 5.50
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.50, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Alexei Gorbachev 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.
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
At 20 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Qara Ramazanov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Araz Abdullayev has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Samir Sadygov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The offer from Dinamo Moscow for Alexei Gorbachev 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.
“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 Ravan, and it is not being withdrawn.
The name of Alexei Gorbachev has come up in conversations Ravan were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Rashad Khalilzade 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.
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.