The Ravan Chronicle
Squad2 Nov 2026
The knee: Araz Ismayilov out for 89 days
89 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ravan lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market2 Nov 2026
Dimitrij Ismayilov asks to leave Ravan
“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.
Match31 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Ravan
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Orkhan Nazarov keeps Ravan in it on his own
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match31 Oct 2026
Ravan leaking at the back
7 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Match31 Oct 2026
Ravan cannot find the net
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Ravan
Danilo Ruiz Díaz and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match31 Oct 2026
Sumgayit take the points off Ravan
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Semih Topcu 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.
In brief
- The dugout Ravan keep their word to Danilo Ruiz Díaz
- The dugout Afran Nadirov: “No excuses”
- The dugout Kamran Guseynov dropped after a run of poor form