Marked for Aziz Mirzaev
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match1 May 2027
The wait goes on for Obod
13 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.
Squad3 May 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Obod know it.
Match1 May 2027
Obod come up short against Neftchi
Neftchi left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout3 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Aziz Mirzaev, and the manager let it.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout3 May 2027
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad3 May 2027
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
The dugout3 May 2027
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Obod training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Asilbek Tojiddinov 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match3 Apr 2027
The wait goes on for Obod
9 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.
Match31 Mar 2027
The small margins put Obod out
Out, 0‑3 to Pakhtakor, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
The terraces5 Apr 2027
A cup embarrassment at Pakhtakor follows Obod home
0-3. Going out of a cup is one afternoon; going out like that is a week of phone-ins, and the manager will hear every one of them.
Squad5 Apr 2027
A falling-out at Obod
Doniyor Ismailov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match3 Apr 2027
The goals have deserted Obod
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Obod can tell you which week it ends in.
Match3 Apr 2027
Obod come up short against Mashal
Mashal left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Doniyor Ismailov, and the manager let it.
Squad5 Apr 2027
The medical room confirms 19 days on the sidelines for Felipe Rocha, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Boardroom5 Apr 2027
Doors closed at Obod
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match13 Mar 2027
6 matches without a win for Obod
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Obod are no longer polite ones.
Market15 Mar 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Obod can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Match13 Mar 2027
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Umid Hasanov, and the manager let it.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Squad15 Mar 2027
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
Nobody at Obod is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Sep 2026
93 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Obod lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market14 Sep 2026
“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.
Match12 Sep 2026
It had gone 6 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
The terraces14 Sep 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
A 1‑0 win over Lokomotiv, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Obod will try again when the window opens; Mashal may not be selling by then.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Marked 7.84 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Obod had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Abdulla Komilov, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, Obod have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.