What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Chertanovo can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chertanovo 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rotor have kept their man, and Chertanovo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Chertanovo has been clear about where Zakhar Svetov stands, which is more than many ever get.
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.
11 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Chertanovo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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 The request is on a desk at Chertanovo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Chertanovo had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Krasnodar, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Hjalti Sigurðsson 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.
0‑4 to Kolomna, 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Chertanovo can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“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 The request is on a desk at Chertanovo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Add another name to the list: Cherepovets have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Makar Yashin. The answer from Chertanovo has not changed — yet.
The gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Kaluga have kept their man, and Chertanovo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $6.1M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chertanovo can pretend not to have heard.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Chertanovo have done the hard part with Neftekhimik, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chertanovo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 14 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Hjalti Sigurðsson 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.
6 goals in one match, Yaroslav Guskov on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Chertanovo and Zenit 2.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Chertanovo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Hjalti Sigurðsson 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.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
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 dugout15 Jan 2035
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Interim Coach chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chertanovo can pretend not to have heard.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Chertanovo and Zvezda in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
4 saves does not settle the argument about whose fault it was, and the argument will run all week. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines whoever caused them.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
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.
“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 Chertanovo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Chertanovo is running low.
Ivan Krasilschikov 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.
It needed Yaroslav Guskov to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Tver, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout1 Jan 2035
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Interim Coach was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Chertanovo dressing room was either.
Zvezda next, and one man in the Chertanovo dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Chertanovo would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
In brief
The dugoutVasily Fokin asks for a word with the manager
0‑5 against Dinamo Vologda, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Chertanovo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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 were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑5, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody at Chertanovo 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Petr Timofeev 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.
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.
It needed Yaroslav Guskov to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Torpedo Vladimir, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Dinamo Vologda.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Interim Coach after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Kosmos defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Chertanovo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Chertanovo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
126% of the income goes out in wages at Chertanovo
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.
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 Djibril Gavranovic is on it.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Konstantin Kotov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Chertanovo and Yenisey 2, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Yaroslav Guskov. 4‑2 against Yenisey 2, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
0‑3 to Cherepovets, 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chertanovo can pretend not to have heard.
Hjalti Sigurðsson 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 easiest signature of my career.” Magomed Ibragimov and Chertanovo agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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.
46 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Chertanovo lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Yaroslav Guskov provided it, and the 8.43 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
9 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Chertanovo and Irkutsk in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Chertanovo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
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.
Something was said to Djibril Gavranovic and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“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 Chertanovo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Hjalti Sigurðsson 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.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $6.2M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
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 Djibril Gavranovic is on it.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Ivan Krasilschikov may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
74 graduates, from a department now rated 4 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
“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 Chertanovo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
Hjalti Sigurðsson 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Chertanovo, another week without a signature from Sergey Kopylov.
The dugout9 Oct 2034
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑4 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
Beaten 4 times, with 2 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
The gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 88. Spartak Moscow 2 had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.86 on the card, and the Chertanovo support went home talking about one name.
Squad2 Oct 2034
A place in the month's best eleven for Vasily Fokin
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Vasily Fokin has come out of that comparison in the side, and Chertanovo have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
A 1‑1 draw with Spartak Moscow 2 leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout2 Oct 2034
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Interim Coach was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Chertanovo dressing room was either.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Chertanovo has been clear about where Konstantin Kotov stands, which is more than many ever get.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Sergey Kopylov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Chertanovo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Danila Strebtsov. 5‑4 against Zenit 2, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
9 goals in one match, Danila Strebtsov on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Chertanovo and Zenit 2.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Chertanovo 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 Chertanovo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sibir have kept their man, and Chertanovo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Yaroslav Guskov has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Tver were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead 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.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Maxim Smolnikov has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Chertanovo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Chertanovo have done the hard part with Chelyabinsk, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chertanovo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lokomotiv Moscow have kept their man, and Chertanovo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Chertanovo had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Dinamo Moscow, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rostov have kept their man, and Chertanovo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $6.4M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
The dugout24 Jul 2034
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sergey Kopylov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Yenisey 2 will want this one forgotten quickly: 5‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Chertanovo were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, and a scan that said otherwise. He goes back to Spartak Kostroma; Chertanovo go back to the market; and both will insist there is no story here.
Everything agreed with Spartak Moscow, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Chertanovo and Yenisey 2 in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
5 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.
Chertanovo asked and Uralets-TS said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Chertanovo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Chertanovo will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 Chertanovo, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, and a scan that said otherwise. He goes back to Uralets-TS; Chertanovo go back to the market; and both will insist there is no story here.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chertanovo 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
“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 Chertanovo, and it is not being withdrawn.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Chertanovo will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yves Allarabaye was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ivan Krasilschikov 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Chertanovo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Chertanovo will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Hjalti Sigurðsson and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Jun 2034
Words at Chertanovo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yves Allarabaye 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Hjalti Sigurðsson signs something — a contract at Chertanovo or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutVasily Fokin asks for a word with the manager
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Chertanovo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Chertanovo can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Chertanovo will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Chertanovo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chertanovo can pretend not to have heard.
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.
In brief
BoardroomWages eat 121% of everything Chertanovo earn
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chertanovo can pretend not to have heard.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Chertanovo 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 Chertanovo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yves Allarabaye was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom8 May 2034
169% of the income goes out in wages at Chertanovo
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.
Hjalti Sigurðsson 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 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.
Nobody at Chertanovo 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.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Matvey Borisov was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Chertanovo would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Chertanovo is running low.
Hjalti Sigurðsson 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Chertanovo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chertanovo can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Sergey Kopylov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Chertanovo the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Chertanovo asked and Legion said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chertanovo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Chertanovo will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Chertanovo could ask drops and the wages Nikita Patkovich can ask rise.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Hjalti Sigurðsson signs something — a contract at Chertanovo or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vasily Fokin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Spartak Moscow 2 will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Chertanovo were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Boardroom30 Jan 2034
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Chertanovo
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Vasily Fokin did not need any: 8.36, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Hjalti Sigurðsson 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.
Chertanovo asked and Ufa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
At 20 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Chertanovo and Zenit 2, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
24 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
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.
Player ratings23 Jan 2034
Ivan Sergienko was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.16. 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.
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 board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“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 Chertanovo, and it is not being withdrawn.
The gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
Squad5 Dec 2033
Words at Chertanovo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Sergienko 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.
Ivan Krasilschikov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Sergienko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ivan Krasilschikov 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout17 Oct 2033
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Chertanovo. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Hjalti Sigurðsson 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.
Squad10 Oct 2033
Words at Chertanovo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yves Allarabaye 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 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Chertanovo, another week without a signature from Yaroslav Guskov.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Chertanovo told Vasily Fokin something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Kolomna in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Chertanovo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chertanovo can pretend not to have heard.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ivan Sergienko provided it, and the 8.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Chertanovo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Yaroslav Guskov did not need any: 8.53, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
8 goals in one match, Ivan Sergienko on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Chertanovo and Zenit 2.
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.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
40 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Chertanovo lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Chertanovo can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Not a month, not a run of form — a whole season of being the best 21-year-old anybody in this division could put on a pitch. This is the honour that gets mentioned for the rest of his career.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“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 Chertanovo, and it is not being withdrawn.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Chertanovo had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
A season average of 7.16 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Chertanovo know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
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.
In brief
BoardroomWages eat 128% of everything Chertanovo earn