Marked for Robert Kramaric
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Apr 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Artem Mironov
59 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Legion lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match12 Apr 2027
Legion are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 59 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad12 Apr 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 Legion this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Legion training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladimir Malyshev 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 dugout12 Apr 2027
“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.
The dugout12 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout22 Feb 2027
“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.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
The clubs have shaken hands with Rubin; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Tempers go at Legion
Daniil Melnikov 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.
Boardroom22 Feb 2027
Wages eat 116% of everything Legion 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.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
A loan enquiry to Avangard: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
Legion have made the call to KAMAZ. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
Krasnodar have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Squad22 Feb 2027
“I did not sign to watch. Nobody does.” The oldest complaint in the game, and Legion will have to answer it with minutes or with a move.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
Edoardo Cavaliere has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Legion 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
Upbeat
Match18 Jan 2027
Legion up to position 2
53 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.87, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match16 Jan 2027
Nobody wants to play Legion right now
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad18 Jan 2027
A falling-out at Legion
Sindre Mauritz-Hansen and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Jan 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; Legion are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The terraces18 Jan 2027
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.
Match16 Jan 2027
Three points for Legion, 2‑0 the final word against Rubin Yalta in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
“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.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
A promise honoured at Legion
Something was said to Emin Sarıgül and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Dec 2026
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Legion will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.62 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
No sign of nerves from Jess Degenaers at 21 — 8.10
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jess Degenaers did not need any: 8.10, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Match26 Dec 2026
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Legion and Nart in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Match26 Dec 2026
It finished 4‑2, and it was Haruna Abubakar’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Legion.
Match26 Dec 2026
Still nobody has beaten Legion
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
The terraces28 Dec 2026
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
123% of the income goes out in wages at Legion
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Dec 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Legion will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market14 Dec 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Alexandr Shevtsov 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.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
A row about effort at Legion
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kirill Gurov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad14 Dec 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 Legion this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
A promise honoured at Legion
Something was said to Kirill Gurov and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
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.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Innokentiy Sychev chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Market14 Dec 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 Dec 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.08 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad7 Dec 2026
At 20, Edoardo Cavaliere is already the best thing here
An average of 7.04 in a first team he is several years too young for. Legion have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words exchanged at Legion
Edoardo Cavaliere 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 terraces7 Dec 2026
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Match5 Dec 2026
It finished 2‑0, and it was Edoardo Cavaliere’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Legion.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Anton Yeremin
“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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Legion are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.