Marked for Ruslan Nadirov
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad27 Dec 2027
The medical room confirms 21 days on the sidelines for Brahim Konaté, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Tempers go at Zira
Issa Djibrilla 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.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Zira training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Qismət Alıyev 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Dec 2026
“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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
14 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Match12 Dec 2026
Khazar made Zira work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad14 Dec 2026
“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.
Market14 Dec 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Araz Bayramov 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
10 goals and a season average of 7.29. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Martins Júnior was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.38. 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.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Nobody could get near Eren Aydın
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market14 Dec 2026
The name of Qismət Alıyev keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Zira say nothing, which says plenty.