“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 The request is on a desk at Metallurg, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metallurg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniil Chernyakov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Maxim Vedeneev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ilnur Badrtdinov signs something — a contract at Metallurg or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Metallurg, and it is not being withdrawn.
Words at Metallurg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxim Vedeneev 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ilnur Badrtdinov signs something — a contract at Metallurg or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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 The request is on a desk at Metallurg, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Maxim Vedeneev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metallurg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Maxim Vedeneev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ilnur Badrtdinov signs something — a contract at Metallurg or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I will play as long as the body lets me and stop the day it does not.” He is 34, with 293 appearances behind him, and the club has to plan for a decision that is not yet made.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Metallurg will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ilnur Badrtdinov signs something — a contract at Metallurg or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 44 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Metallurg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Dmitry Savin 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.
Metallurg asked and Kaluga 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Zvezda will make the call about Razzaa Fachrezi this week. Metallurg have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
In brief
The dugoutSavva Potapov has become a man the manager trusts
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 58 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Metallurg can pretend not to have heard.
Metallurg asked and Irkutsk said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad5 Feb 2029
Words at Metallurg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxim Vedeneev 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.
“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 Metallurg know it.
A loan enquiry to Dinamo Vologda: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Words at Metallurg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxim Vedeneev 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 club is not barred from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every name linked with Metallurg this window arrives with a name leaving in the same sentence.
The dugout25 Sep 2028
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.” Evgeniy Zabolotsky chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Metallurg can pretend not to have heard.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Gleb Simakov did not need any: 8.05, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Dinamo Stavropol is saying, and nobody at Metallurg is enjoying the guessing.
14 combined actions and 7.17. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Savva Potapov is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Dmitry Savin 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Orel have kept their man, and Metallurg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 18 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.
Match5 Aug 2028
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Metallurg. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Metallurg were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
82 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Metallurg lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metallurg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fyodor Butusov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Vladimir Maltsev 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. Yuri Lebedev 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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Words at Metallurg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniil Chernyakov 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.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Metallurg will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Gleb Simakov