Marked for Aleksandr Simakov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad30 Jun 2031
Aleksandr Simakov damages knee ligaments — 14 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 14 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market30 Jun 2031
Daniil Grada 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 Druzhba can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets30 Jun 2031
Druzhba asked and Arsenal Tula said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad30 Jun 2031
Kirill Yushko 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.
Squad30 Jun 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Druzhba this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market30 Jun 2031
He signed expecting a bigger stage than the one he found. It has not taken long, and it has not taken the dressing room long to notice either.
Market30 Jun 2031
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market30 Jun 2031
Experience through the door at Druzhba
Funso Ojo arrives at 39 with nothing left to prove and plenty left to pass on. Legs are a young man's currency; knowing where to stand never ages.
The dugout30 Jun 2031
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Simba Nymanwanza, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Jun 2031
Aleksandr Simakov damages knee ligaments — 21 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 21 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market23 Jun 2031
Zaid Koblev 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 Druzhba can pretend not to have heard.
Market23 Jun 2031
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Druzhba is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Transfer targets23 Jun 2031
Fee agreed, terms agreed, and a scan that said otherwise. He goes back to Baltika; Druzhba go back to the market; and both will insist there is no story here.
Squad23 Jun 2031
Artem Kuzmenko 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.
Squad23 Jun 2031
A row about effort at Druzhba
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Krystian Mucha was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom23 Jun 2031
Druzhba cannot sign anybody
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
The dugout23 Jun 2031
Yegor Lipaev 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.
Squad23 Jun 2031
7 new faces, and Druzhba are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom16 Jun 2031
Pressure builds in the Druzhba boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad16 Jun 2031
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Druzhba lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market16 Jun 2031
“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.
Market16 Jun 2031
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kirill Pluzhnikov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Druzhba the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad16 Jun 2031
A falling-out at Druzhba
Krystian Mucha and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets16 Jun 2031
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad16 Jun 2031
Words at Druzhba training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zaid Koblev 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.
Boardroom16 Jun 2031
Wages swallow 123% of the Druzhba income
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Squad16 Jun 2031
15 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Jun 2031
Aleksandr Simakov damages knee ligaments — 35 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 35 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market9 Jun 2031
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Aleksandrs Zjuzins will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Druzhba the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad9 Jun 2031
A row about effort at Druzhba
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Krystian Mucha was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market9 Jun 2031
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
Boardroom9 Jun 2031
The Druzhba debt reaches $5.2M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Ivan Salikhov has outgrown this division
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Druzhba know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Market9 Jun 2031
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad9 Jun 2031
Simba Nymanwanza 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.
Market9 Jun 2031
At 36, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.