Marked for Stanislav Glushakov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market15 Feb 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Strogino, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad15 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Strogino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
The dugout15 Feb 2027
Valery Ozerov 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 Valery Ozerov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad15 Feb 2027
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Strogino would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Squad15 Feb 2027
The table has started to be checked before the results are in, and that is always the tell. Nobody at Strogino says the word out loud, and everybody in the building is thinking it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match23 Jan 2027
The wait goes on for Strogino
25 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 terraces25 Jan 2027
Supporters organise against the Strogino board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Match25 Jan 2027
Strogino sink to position 15
5 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Match23 Jan 2027
Nowhere to hide for Strogino
0‑4 against Salyut, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Market25 Jan 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Strogino, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match23 Jan 2027
Strogino leaking at the back
5 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at Strogino
German Parfenov 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.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
13 combined actions and 6.64. 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
53 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match16 Jan 2027
24 matches without a win for Strogino
The run now stands at 24, and the questions being asked around Strogino are no longer polite ones.
Match16 Jan 2027
Nowhere to hide for Strogino
2‑5 against Kvant, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.71 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market18 Jan 2027
Valery Ozerov hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Strogino can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
No sign of nerves from Nazar Zhirinovsky at 14 — 7.64
The hardest thing about being 14 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Nazar Zhirinovsky did not need any: 7.64, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Sergey Guzyuk commits to Strogino for another 3 years.
Match16 Jan 2027
Sergey Guzyuk among the goals in a wild afternoon
7 goals in one match, Sergey Guzyuk on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Strogino and Kvant.
Squad18 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Strogino this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces5 Oct 2026
Supporters organise against the Strogino board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Match3 Oct 2026
10 matches without a win for Strogino
The run now stands at 10, and the questions being asked around Strogino are no longer polite ones.
Match5 Oct 2026
Every point is an argument now for Strogino
Position 15 and 3 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.00, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market5 Oct 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
German Parfenov, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.20
A mark of 8.20 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Vladislav Saushkin 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Strogino training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexey Muldarov 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 terraces5 Oct 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. German Parfenov 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.