Marked for Andreas Alaba
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom4 Oct 2032
Pressure builds in the Kosmos boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market4 Oct 2032
Andreas Alaba 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 Kosmos can pretend not to have heard.
Squad4 Oct 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kosmos this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom4 Oct 2032
$223.4K of the owner's money at Kosmos
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Squad4 Oct 2032
Dawid Fornalik 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.
Boardroom4 Oct 2032
Wages eat 173% of everything Kosmos earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Boardroom4 Oct 2032
The Kosmos debt reaches $6.0M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Market4 Oct 2032
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market4 Oct 2032
Kosmos have let the market know Yegor Truntaev can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad23 Feb 2032
Tempers go at Kosmos
Samir Masimov 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.
Squad23 Feb 2032
Words at Kosmos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dawid Fornalik 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.
Boardroom23 Feb 2032
167% of the income goes out in wages at Kosmos
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.
Boardroom23 Feb 2032
Kosmos are $5.9M in the red
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Squad23 Feb 2032
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.
Squad23 Feb 2032
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Andreas Alaba, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market26 Jan 2032
“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.
Squad26 Jan 2032
Tempers go at Kosmos
Samir Masimov 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.
Squad26 Jan 2032
Yegor Axionov 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.
Boardroom26 Jan 2032
Wages eat 164% of everything Kosmos earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Player ratings26 Jan 2032
Marked 8.13 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Match24 Jan 2032
Kosmos hit back inside 3 minutes
Tver held the lead for 3 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Kosmos answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
Boardroom26 Jan 2032
Kosmos are $6.0M in the red
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Match24 Jan 2032
Honours even between Kosmos and Tver
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad26 Jan 2032
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Konrad Arnautovic, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad13 Oct 2031
A knee injury of the worst kind for Samir Masimov
87 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kosmos lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces13 Oct 2031
The mood at Kosmos 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.
Market13 Oct 2031
“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 Kosmos, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad13 Oct 2031
Words at Kosmos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yegor Axionov 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.
Match11 Oct 2031
A bad afternoon for Kosmos against Tver
0‑2 to Tver, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings13 Oct 2031
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad13 Oct 2031
Mikhail Naumov dropped after a run of poor form
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.
Squad13 Oct 2031
Maxim Abramov has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Kosmos 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.
Market13 Oct 2031
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nikita Yershov signs something — a contract at Kosmos or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad29 Sep 2031
A knee injury of the worst kind for Samir Masimov
101 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kosmos lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market29 Sep 2031
“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 Kosmos, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom29 Sep 2031
The scrutiny sharpens at Kosmos
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Kosmos is running low.
Squad29 Sep 2031
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad29 Sep 2031
Words at Kosmos training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yegor Axionov 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.
Player ratings29 Sep 2031
7.56, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Kosmos had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Squad29 Sep 2031
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.
Player ratings29 Sep 2031
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match27 Sep 2031
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Dinamo Vologda defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.