The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cherepovets is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cherepovets 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.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Cherepovets, another week without a signature from Alexandr Gorelov.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cherepovets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Sep 2040
Words at Cherepovets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Torres 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 manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
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.
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.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Saturn defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.08 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Cherepovets has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad27 Aug 2040
Words at Cherepovets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Torres 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.
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.
Nikita Lyutikov 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.
1‑6 to Yenisey 2, 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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Nikita Bosenkov scored, was marked 7.37, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cherepovets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Cherepovets and Yenisey 2 in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Boardroom13 Aug 2040
Nobody left the Cherepovets dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Cherepovets lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Cherepovets, and it is not being withdrawn.
7 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Igor Davydov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Evgeni Yershov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Igor Malakhov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cherepovets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Radomir Knyazev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cherepovets 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 Cherepovets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 May 2040
Words at Cherepovets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Torres 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.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Cherepovets they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Cherepovets will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Kacper Skrobański 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 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.
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.
Daniil Goncharov 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 Cherepovets 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.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Platon Lipatov has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Azamat Djumaev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Cherepovets the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Cherepovets know it.
Kacper Skrobański 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 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ivan Novik and Cherepovets agree another 2 years.
Squad5 Mar 2040
Words at Cherepovets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Torres 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 list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Rashad Abdullayev may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
In brief
MarketThe clock does Oleg Bolshakov’s negotiating for him
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cherepovets is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cherepovets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom26 Dec 2039
196% of the income goes out in wages at Cherepovets
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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Kacper Skrobański signs something — a contract at Cherepovets or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
512 appearances across 14 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Boardroom5 Dec 2039
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Cherepovets
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ayoub Makhfaoui and Cherepovets agree another 2 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cherepovets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.26 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Daniil Goncharov 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.
8.13. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Nobody at Cherepovets 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.
Daniil Goncharov 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.
Nobody at Cherepovets 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cherepovets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
Kacper Skrobański 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 manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
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.
The mood at Cherepovets 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.
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad21 Mar 2039
Words at Cherepovets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Torres 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.
Boardroom21 Mar 2039
148% of the income goes out in wages at Cherepovets
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cherepovets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Aleksey Yarygin 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.