Marked for Viktor Borodin
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match12 Aug 2028
9 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.
Match12 Aug 2028
A 0‑3 beating by Dinamo Stavropol was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market14 Aug 2028
“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.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Pavel Banschikov is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Matvey Smirnov 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Jul 2028
Pavel Banschikov 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.
Match22 Jul 2028
No end in sight to Kuban Holding's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Kuban Holding has to find a result from somewhere.
Market24 Jul 2028
“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.
Squad24 Jul 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kuban Holding this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Jul 2028
“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.
Player ratings24 Jul 2028
7.95, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Kuban Holding had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Jul 2028
Pavel Banschikov damages knee ligaments — 28 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
Squad17 Jul 2028
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Georgy Volkov breaks a bone — 14 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 14 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match15 Jul 2028
No end in sight to Kuban Holding's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Kuban Holding has to find a result from somewhere.
Market17 Jul 2028
“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.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mikhail Mikaelyan is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Boardroom17 Jul 2028
2 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Match15 Jul 2028
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Kuban Holding can tell you which week it ends in.
Market17 Jul 2028
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Igor Yelizarov 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Boardroom5 Jun 2028
The numbers do not look good at Kuban Holding
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.
Market5 Jun 2028
“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 Kuban Holding, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Nikita Gorunkov 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.
Market5 Jun 2028
26 appearances and 6 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Squad5 Jun 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sergey Kopylov, and the manager let it.
Squad5 Jun 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Pavel Tabolin and Kuban Holding agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Nikita Yavorskiy loses the manager who believed in him
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Nikita Yavorskiy's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces20 Mar 2028
Anger at Kuban Holding spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Boardroom20 Mar 2028
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Kuban Holding
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad20 Mar 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kuban Holding this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.