Marked for Aibol Zainutdinov
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer from Kokand 1912 for Roei Alkukin 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hapoel Tel Aviv this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Hapoel Tel Aviv training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Doron Leidner 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
27 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Market17 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Hapoel Tel Aviv have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at Hapoel Tel Aviv
8 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market3 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Irtysh did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad3 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Irtysh this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Akzhaiyk have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Samat Nurgaliev. The answer from Irtysh has not changed — yet.
The terraces3 Aug 2026
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Irtysh training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Samat Nurgaliev 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Samat Nurgaliev
“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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Marked 7.72 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Irtysh had the best player on the pitch.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
There was no pressure on him and nowhere he had to be. Irtysh lost a goal to a decision that took half a second and will be discussed all week.