Marked for Samir Garayev
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces2 Aug 2027
The mood at Khazar has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Boardroom2 Aug 2027
Pressure builds in the Khazar boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market2 Aug 2027
“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.
Market2 Aug 2027
Samir Garayev has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Khazar they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Ifeanyi Mathew 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.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Colo-Colo have kept their man, and Khazar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad2 Aug 2027
A falling-out at Khazar
Namig Nadirov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market2 Aug 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Khazar have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Rashad Madatov and Khazar agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match26 Jul 2027
Khazar sink to position 9
12 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market26 Jul 2027
“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.
Transfer targets26 Jul 2027
$1.0M on the table at Neftchi. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets26 Jul 2027
Neftchi wanted more than $810.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets26 Jul 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Qarabag have kept their man, and Khazar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Ifeanyi Mathew 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.
Squad26 Jul 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 Khazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout26 Jul 2027
Mahir Bayramov knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Khazar, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market26 Jul 2027
Khazar have made Max Dickov available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market12 Jul 2027
“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.
Market12 Jul 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Khazar people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market12 Jul 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2027
$60.0K was the most the club would pay and Ravan were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Ifeanyi Mathew 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.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2027
Khazar asked and Argentinos Juniors said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words exchanged at Khazar
Namig Nadirov 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Daniel Castro 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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2027
Khazar have made the call to Colo-Colo. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Feb 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 44 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market22 Feb 2027
“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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
14 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad22 Feb 2027
A row about effort at Khazar
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ifeanyi Mathew was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
Khazar asked and Defensores Unidos said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Tempers go at Khazar
Namig Nadirov 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
Uneasy
Squad18 Jan 2027
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Khazar will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market18 Jan 2027
Mahir Ozobic 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 Khazar can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Neftchi keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Neftchi have kept their man, and Khazar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad18 Jan 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 Khazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Samir Garayev commits to Khazar for another 4 years.
Market18 Jan 2027
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Khazar will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Emin Ramazanov pulls a muscle — 14 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
Ruslan Nazarov knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ruslan Nazarov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market4 Jan 2027
“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 Khazar, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at Khazar
Namig Nadirov 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.
Market4 Jan 2027
Everyone has stopped pretending: Sumgayit will make the call about Dimitrij Ozobic this week. Khazar have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Loan watch4 Jan 2027
“I watch every Khazar game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sumgayit runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Khazar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dimitrij Amirguliyev 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.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
A loan move for Imad Faraj is in the works
Khazar have made the call to Neftchi. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
AZAL 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
Open for business: Khazar enter the window
The registration window is open and the phone has started. Between now and the deadline this club will be linked with forty players and sign three, which is the usual ratio.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market28 Dec 2026
Samir Jafarov 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 Khazar can pretend not to have heard.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Max Dickov 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 Khazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Dec 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Bahlul Bayramov and Khazar agree another 3 years.
Squad28 Dec 2026
A row about effort at Khazar
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dimitrij Ozobic was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market28 Dec 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Ruslan Nazarov’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad28 Dec 2026
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Khazar would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match28 Nov 2026
No end in sight to Khazar's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Khazar has to find a result from somewhere.
Market30 Nov 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Khazar can pretend not to have heard.
Match28 Nov 2026
Khazar cannot find the net
5 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.
Squad30 Nov 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 Khazar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Agil Abdullayev will call it something else in private.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Qara Nazarov was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Khazar dressing room was either.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Khazar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ruslan Huseynov 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 dugout30 Nov 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match28 Nov 2026
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Gabala defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match16 Nov 2026
Khazar are in real trouble now
Position 9, 10 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Match14 Nov 2026
Chastening afternoon for Khazar
A 0‑4 beating by Ravan was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Market16 Nov 2026
Mahir Ozobic 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 Khazar can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Khazar may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match14 Nov 2026
The goals have deserted Khazar
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Khazar can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Khazar
Mahir Bayramov 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 dugout16 Nov 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Boardroom16 Nov 2026
Doors closed at Khazar
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Loan watch16 Nov 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Khazar, and 0 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.