Alexei Dobrynin

Attacking Midfielder (L) - Rotor
26 Feb 2031
Wednesday
Process

Marked for Alexei Dobrynin

227 Edition

The Rotor 2 Post

2 Dec 2030
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Match

The wait goes on for Rotor 2

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.

Squad

Ilya Bogdanov makes it 100

100 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.

The dugout

The manager makes an example of Miroslav Obukhov

“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.

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Vyacheslav Raspopin

Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

Match

Rotor 2 and Kvant take a point apiece

It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.

The dugout

Aleksey Goncharov knocks on the manager’s door

“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aleksey Goncharov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.

Squad

Rotor 2 have started building around Vyacheslav Raspopin

He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.

The dugout

No place in the plan for Vyacheslav Raspopin

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.

Squad

Ilya Bogdanov says his piece

“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.

In brief

Back issues
190 Edition

The Rotor Gazette

18 Mar 2030
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Squad

18 days out for Alexei Dobrynin after a fracture

A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Rotor will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.

The dugout

news_h_frozen_out_of_the_side

news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side

The dugout

Fyodor Yarygin: that is not what I was promised

“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Rotor have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.

Market

Artem Konovalov is on his way

The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Rotor is pretending he will be back in the shirt.

Squad

Abu-Said Eldarushev in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rotor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Squad

Andrey Marjanov 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.

Market

Danil Khromov is free to find somewhere else

“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Rotor has been clear about where Danil Khromov stands, which is more than many ever get.

The dugout

Andrey Marjanov has become a man the manager trusts

Nobody at Rotor 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 dugout

Colin Pawlak gets it from the manager

“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.

In brief