Marked for Artem Kravets
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 May 2027
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Inter lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match10 May 2027
Every point is an argument now for Inter
Position 8 and 10 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market10 May 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Inter is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad10 May 2027
Words exchanged at Inter
Samir Ramazanov and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad10 May 2027
Mahir Guseynov 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 May 2027
A muscle injury and 16 days out for Yaw Ofori
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Inter will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Artem Kravets
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Inter lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom3 May 2027
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Emin Huseynov has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market3 May 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.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Inter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denis Višinský 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.
Boardroom3 May 2027
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Cédric Gasser has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Inter have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Squad3 May 2027
Tempers go at Inter
Samir Ramazanov 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom26 Apr 2027
The scrutiny sharpens at Inter
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Inter is running low.
Squad26 Apr 2027
30 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Inter lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
Squad26 Apr 2027
Denis Višinský 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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words exchanged at Inter
Agil Abdullayev and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
Agil Abdullayev has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Inter 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces19 Apr 2027
Supporters organise against the Inter board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Squad19 Apr 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Artem Kravets
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Inter lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words exchanged at Inter
Agil Abdullayev and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Inter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mahir Guseynov 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Inter are still strangers to each other
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.