Marked for Nir Cohen
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad30 Oct 2034
53 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Nasaf lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad30 Oct 2034
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 72 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market30 Oct 2034
Duván Riascos 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 Nasaf can pretend not to have heard.
Squad30 Oct 2034
Nir Cohen keeps the receipts
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Nasaf may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market30 Oct 2034
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Nasaf they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad30 Oct 2034
Tempers go at Nasaf
Angus Moss 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Sep 2034
108 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Nasaf lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad11 Sep 2034
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 20 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match9 Sep 2034
Nasaf taken apart
0‑3 to Bunyodkor, 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.
Squad11 Sep 2034
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market11 Sep 2034
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ozodbek O'ktamov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Nasaf the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market11 Sep 2034
Duván Riascos 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 Nasaf can pretend not to have heard.
Match9 Sep 2034
No end in sight to Nasaf's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Nasaf has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad11 Sep 2034
Karlo Muhar 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.
Boardroom11 Sep 2034
Doors closed at Nasaf
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
Crisis
Squad28 Nov 2033
A fracture rules Anri Chichinadze out for 86 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Nasaf will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad28 Nov 2033
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Nasaf may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market28 Nov 2033
“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 Nasaf, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market28 Nov 2033
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Nasaf is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad28 Nov 2033
Karlo Muhar 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.
Squad28 Nov 2033
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nasaf this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market15 Aug 2033
“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 Nasaf, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings15 Aug 2033
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.69 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad15 Aug 2033
Nir Cohen says Nasaf went back on their word
“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.
Market15 Aug 2033
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Nasaf have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Match13 Aug 2033
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Nasaf and Metallurg in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Match13 Aug 2033
Metallurg made Nasaf work for it, but the scoreboard read 4‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad15 Aug 2033
Words at Nasaf training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Karlo Muhar 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.
Boardroom15 Aug 2033
Wages eat 152% of everything Nasaf 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.
Squad15 Aug 2033
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nasaf this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom4 Jul 2033
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Market4 Jul 2033
“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 Nasaf, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings4 Jul 2033
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match2 Jul 2033
Nobody wants to play Nasaf right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad4 Jul 2033
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Adenis Shala commits to Nasaf for another 2 years.
Squad4 Jul 2033
Karlo Muhar 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 Jul 2033
$734.9K of the owner's money at Nasaf
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 Jul 2033
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nasaf this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match2 Jul 2033
Three points for Nasaf, 1‑0 the final word against Andijon in a contest settled by the finer margins.