Ilja Yurchenko 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Valery Pochivalin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Dinamo Vladivostok, another week without a signature from Valery Pochivalin.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dinamo Vladivostok know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
16 points from position 4. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lev Samsonov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Nikolay Sukhanov’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Dinamo Vladivostok have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ilja Yurchenko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Ilja Shvedyuk 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.
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.
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 Alexey Amelin is on 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 Dinamo Vladivostok, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ilja Yurchenko 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daur Kvekveskiri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Valentin Bykov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ilja Shvedyuk signs something — a contract at Dinamo Vladivostok or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Bisnat Mbala and Dinamo Vladivostok agree another 3 years.
Ilja Yurchenko 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Sergey Dudko 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. Lev Samsonov 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. Valentin Kashirin 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Sergey Shilov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.