17 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Shakhter Donetsk has to find a result from somewhere.
17 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Artem Demagin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shakhter Donetsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 16 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“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 The request is on a desk at Shakhter Donetsk, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shakhter Donetsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $2.3M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
The dugout13 Mar 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Yaroslav Belyakov left the room before anybody could ask which.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shakhter Donetsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Vladlen Kolesnikov 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Armin Ibrahimović trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igor Grigoryev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Vladislav Zubkov has his answer from Shakhter Donetsk; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Rodolfo Cardoso signs something — a contract at Shakhter Donetsk or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Dmitri Karimov is on it.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Andrey Kabaev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Demagin 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. German Ibragimov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Nikolai Bessonov 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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Yaroslav Belyakov has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
6 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.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Shakhter Donetsk can tell you which week it ends in.
Alexandr Bibikov 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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Yegor Lipaev 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Yaroslav Belyakov after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Armin Ibrahimović trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Shakhter Donetsk told Igor Grigoryev something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Shakhter Donetsk know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.