“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 The request is on a desk at Pro Patria, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pro Patria is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
King Udoh 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Anton Laptev is living that version at Pro Patria, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad24 Jun 2030
Words at Pro Patria training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Sassaro 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.
Eslit Meksi is 20, and Pro Patria have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 42 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Neftekhimik can pretend not to have heard.
Nikita Vasiljev 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Linar Sharifullin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Neftekhimik will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Neftekhimik can pretend not to have heard.
Nikita Vasiljev 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Neftekhimik training over how hard people work
The words a physio says slowly. 29 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Position 16 and 24 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“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 Neftekhimik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Nikita Vasiljev 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.
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.
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.
12 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 57 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Neftekhimik will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Neftekhimik can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Neftekhimik they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftekhimik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Neftekhimik can tell you which week it ends in.
The words a physio says slowly. 87 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Neftekhimik is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Nikita Vasiljev 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.
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.
The mood at Neftekhimik 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Neftekhimik can pretend not to have heard.
Giorgi Kantaria 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.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Words at Neftekhimik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrey Nikitin 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.
Shinnik left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Boardroom27 Nov 2028
136% of the income goes out in wages at Neftekhimik
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.
Nobody at Neftekhimik 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.
Position 16 and 13 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“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 Neftekhimik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Neftekhimik they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftekhimik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Position 16 and 11 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“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 Neftekhimik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Vadim Agafontsev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Neftekhimik the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftekhimik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
18 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.
“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 Neftekhimik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Vadim Agafontsev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Neftekhimik the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftekhimik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
0‑3 to Yenisey, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
8 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Neftekhimik can tell you which week it ends in.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Neftekhimik is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Vadim Agafontsev has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftekhimik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Rostov pay $280.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Words at Neftekhimik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrey Nikitin 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.