Marked for Raphael Dragovic
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad27 Mar 2045
Words at Rotor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Virgil De Jong 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.
Squad27 Mar 2045
“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.
Squad27 Mar 2045
Raphael Dragovic has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Rotor 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match14 Nov 2044
Rotor are in among the leaders
Position 3 and 32 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market14 Nov 2044
Jasper Babel 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 Rotor can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings14 Nov 2044
No sign of nerves from Eden Lukaku at 21 — 7.73
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Eden Lukaku did not need any: 7.73, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad14 Nov 2044
Raphael Dragovic: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Rotor have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings14 Nov 2044
Age has not caught Svante Källoff yet — 7.93
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.93 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings14 Nov 2044
Virgil De Jong pops up at the right end — 7.97
7.97, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Match12 Nov 2044
Nobody wants to play Rotor 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.
Match12 Nov 2044
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Svante Källoff. 4‑3 against Akhmat, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match12 Nov 2044
7 goals as Rotor and Akhmat go for it
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Rotor and Akhmat, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match5 Oct 2044
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Yakov Ushakov obliged against Volga. 3‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Rotor.
Match8 Oct 2044
Rotor make home a hard place to visit
15 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad10 Oct 2044
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings10 Oct 2044
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.84 for the rest of it.
Match8 Oct 2044
1‑2 to Neftekhimik, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The terraces10 Oct 2044
The crowd has taken to Marko Simic
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad10 Oct 2044
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Osayi Eze commits to Rotor for another 3 years.
Player ratings10 Oct 2044
Defensive actions: 16, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings10 Oct 2044
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.58 on the card, and the Rotor support went home talking about one name.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Jul 2044
Bautista Alonso damages knee ligaments — 48 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 48 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.
Market4 Jul 2044
The deal that would have taken Bautista Alonso to KDV Tomsk has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Rotor with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Boardroom4 Jul 2044
Intake day at the Rotor academy
6 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
Market4 Jul 2044
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lukas Trimmel signs something — a contract at Rotor or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Squad4 Jul 2044
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.
Squad4 Jul 2044
“I will know when it is time. I am not there yet.” Arseny Vasilenko is 37, with 340 appearances behind him, and Rotor will have to plan for whichever answer comes.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad27 Jun 2044
Bautista Alonso damages knee ligaments — 55 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 55 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.
Boardroom27 Jun 2044
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Yann Dumas 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.
Squad27 Jun 2044
Lukas Trimmel has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Rotor 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad6 Jun 2044
Bautista Alonso damages knee ligaments — 76 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 76 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.
Squad6 Jun 2044
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Rotor have had the benefit of it.
Squad6 Jun 2044
Isaac Gordon 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 Rotor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market6 Jun 2044
He is 19, and nobody at Rotor signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Squad6 Jun 2044
Words at Rotor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Raphael Dragovic 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.
Market6 Jun 2044
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lukas Trimmel signs something — a contract at Rotor or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 May 2044
Bautista Alonso damages knee ligaments — 83 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 83 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.
Squad30 May 2044
Thomas Cordier 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.
Squad30 May 2044
Lukas Trimmel has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Rotor 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.