Mark Gorbachev

Striker - Krasnodar U19
20 Mar 2029
Tuesday
Process

Marked for Mark Gorbachev

40 Edition

The Krasnodar Post

3 May 2027
From our football correspondent Steady

Squad

Tempers go at Krasnodar

Jhon Córdoba 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.

Squad

Diego Costa 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 dugout

No hiding place for Dmitry Vorobjov

“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dmitry Vorobjov, and the manager let it.

The dugout

Jhon Córdoba 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 Jhon Córdoba is on it.

Market

The Tormena talk will not go away

Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Krasnodar know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.

The dugout

Douglas Augusto has been promised minutes

A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Douglas Augusto has written the date down.

The dugout

The manager comes out for Diego Costa

Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Diego Costa has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.

Squad

Artem Sapunov is put on a programme of his own

Individual work, away from the group, aimed at one specific thing the coaches think is holding him back. It rarely makes the news and it is how most improvement actually happens.

Squad

Mark Gorbachev is starting to look at home

The language is arriving, the jokes are landing, and there is somebody at the next peg to talk to. None of it appears in a scouting report and all of it shows up on the pitch.

In brief