Marked for Davis Vanins
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match9 Sep 2028
Saturn win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Tver will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
A brace, and Arsen Djioev takes the afternoon — 8.11
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Arsen Djioev provided it, and the 8.11 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad11 Sep 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saturn this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Maxim Sedov 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.
Match9 Sep 2028
Saturn get the job done against Tver
A 2‑1 win over Tver, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad11 Sep 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Semyon Yemelin, and the manager let it.
Squad11 Sep 2028
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.
Market11 Sep 2028
The name of Maxim Yedapin keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Saturn say nothing, which says plenty.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
5.78. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Jul 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Semyon Yemelin is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match15 Jul 2028
Still nobody has beaten Saturn
The unbeaten run reaches 8. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Player ratings17 Jul 2028
A chastening introduction for Davis Vanins — 5.74
It is a hard way to meet a crowd. Marked 5.74 on the day he was handed the shirt, and the important thing now is what the next one looks like.
Boardroom17 Jul 2028
A new deal for the man in the dugout, and the clearest thing a board can say without calling a press conference about it. Stability is cheap to promise and expensive to deliver.
Squad17 Jul 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saturn this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom17 Jul 2028
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Saturn
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Artem Teterkin has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad17 Jul 2028
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.
Market17 Jul 2028
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Yefrem Mamonov 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market26 Jun 2028
Davis Vanins hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Saturn can pretend not to have heard.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at Saturn training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yaroslav Khramtsevich 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.
Squad26 Jun 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saturn this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad19 Jun 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Saturn may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad19 Jun 2028
A season average of 7.00 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Saturn know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Tempers go at Saturn
Valery Chupin 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
Upbeat
Squad5 Jun 2028
Not a month, not a run of form — a whole season of being the best 20-year-old anybody in this division could put on a pitch. This is the honour that gets mentioned for the rest of his career.
Market5 Jun 2028
“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 Saturn, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad5 Jun 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Saturn this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
The numbers do not look good at Saturn
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad5 Jun 2028
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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
The manager makes an example of Nikolay Genchu
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match20 Sep 2027
Skonto refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 29 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 33 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Tempers go at Skonto
Mihkel Ainsalu 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Words at Skonto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilja Kutepov 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Benjamín Rivera, and the manager let it.
Market20 Sep 2027
Skonto have let the market know Raivis Kamess can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.