Marked for Benjamin Edwards
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 May 2032
A fracture rules Stepan Pravkin out for 123 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Spartak Tambov will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market31 May 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.
Squad31 May 2032
“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 Spartak Tambov know it.
Squad31 May 2032
Daniil Gurchenko and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout31 May 2032
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
The dugout31 May 2032
Daniil Gurchenko asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout31 May 2032
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Andrey Maloletov is on it.
Market31 May 2032
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Spartak Tambov know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market31 May 2032
Spartak Tambov have let the market know Sondre Bakken can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad8 Mar 2032
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 46 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market8 Mar 2032
“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 The request is on a desk at Spartak Tambov, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad8 Mar 2032
Daniil Gurchenko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad8 Mar 2032
Stepan Pravkin arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Stepan Pravkin has, at Spartak Tambov, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad8 Mar 2032
Yegor Belyaev 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.
The dugout8 Mar 2032
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
The dugout8 Mar 2032
Matias Ramirez asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout8 Mar 2032
Andrey Maloletov has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Spartak Tambov 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.
The dugout8 Mar 2032
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Benjamin Edwards, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings1 Dec 2031
Successful dribbles: 58. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Market1 Dec 2031
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Spartak Tambov can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Dec 2031
Daniil Gurchenko 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.
Squad1 Dec 2031
Words at Spartak Tambov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sondre Bakken 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.
Boardroom1 Dec 2031
Wages eat 105% of everything Spartak Tambov 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.
Squad1 Dec 2031
Defences have started doubling up on Daniil Gurchenko
4 goals and a season average of 7.31 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
The dugout1 Dec 2031
Maxim Levin gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Maxim Levin is on it.
The dugout1 Dec 2031
“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.
Boardroom1 Dec 2031
The manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad6 Oct 2031
2 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Match1 Oct 2031
A 0‑0 win over Chelyabinsk, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Squad6 Oct 2031
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Maxim Levin and Spartak Tambov agree another 2 years.
Squad6 Oct 2031
Daniil Gurchenko 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.
Match1 Oct 2031
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Spartak Tambov did not have in the autumn.
Squad6 Oct 2031
Oliver Stanišić 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.
Boardroom6 Oct 2031
Wages eat 113% of everything Spartak Tambov 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 ratings6 Oct 2031
Twelve yards, a goalkeeper guessing, and it still did not go in. He will take the next one, and every soul in the ground will hold their breath.
Player ratings6 Oct 2031
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings15 Sep 2031
Successful dribbles: 52. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad15 Sep 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Tambov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Sep 2031
Words at Spartak Tambov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oliver Stanišić 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.
Squad15 Sep 2031
Spartak Tambov are still strangers to each other
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout15 Sep 2031
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Daniil Gurchenko is on it.
Boardroom15 Sep 2031
Nobody has barred the club from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every incoming name comes with an outgoing one attached.
The dugout15 Sep 2031
“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.
The dugout15 Sep 2031
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Tikhon Butusov was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Spartak Tambov dressing room was either.
Market15 Sep 2031
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Spartak Tambov, another week without a signature from Andrey Maloletov.