Marked for Morteza Hosseini
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market4 Oct 2032
“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 The request is on a desk at Shakhter, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market4 Oct 2032
Only the photograph left for Logan Sambrook
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Logan Sambrook will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Shakhter the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad4 Oct 2032
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dias Qalybaev and Shakhter agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad4 Oct 2032
Andrei Vlad 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.
Squad4 Oct 2032
Emmanuel Ntim 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.
Boardroom4 Oct 2032
$90.4K on the table at Shakhter
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Jan 2032
Azamat Tuiakbaev 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.
Squad19 Jan 2032
Words at Shakhter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleksandr Migunov 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 Jan 2032
Jamshid Boltaboev has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Shakhter 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
Steady
Market12 Jan 2032
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Shakhter is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad12 Jan 2032
Andrei Vlad in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shakhter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Jan 2032
A move Morteza Hosseini would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Morteza Hosseini is living that version at Shakhter, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad12 Jan 2032
Words at Shakhter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emmanuel Ntim 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.
Squad12 Jan 2032
Andrei Vlad has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Shakhter 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.
Market12 Jan 2032
At 34, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings5 May 2031
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 May 2031
228 appearances across 11 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Tobol know what they have.
Market5 May 2031
“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 Tobol, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad5 May 2031
“The easiest signature of my career.” Luis Guerra and Tobol agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad5 May 2031
Tempers go at Tobol
Rubin Hebaj 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 May 2031
Words at Tobol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Boršić 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.
Match3 May 2031
A bad afternoon for Tobol against Astana
0‑1 to Astana, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom5 May 2031
122% of the income goes out in wages at Tobol
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Market5 May 2031
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Tobol, another week without a signature from Nasser Khalifah.