Marked for Semyon Chesnokov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match18 Aug 2027
1‑2 against Leningradets, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Match21 Aug 2027
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Market23 Aug 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Spartak Nalchik can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings23 Aug 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.40, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings23 Aug 2027
Georgy Kudryashov, 15, plays like he has been here for years — 8.55
A mark of 8.55 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 15-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Match21 Aug 2027
It had gone 10 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
The dugout23 Aug 2027
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Transfer targets23 Aug 2027
Spartak Nalchik asked and Dinamo Stavropol said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The terraces23 Aug 2027
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout12 Jul 2027
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Market12 Jul 2027
The name of Aslanbek Kumykov has come up in conversations Spartak Nalchik were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market12 Jul 2027
Nosta come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Spartak Nalchik did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2027
Everything agreed with Tyumen, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Alan Khachirov 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.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2027
$5.0K was the most the club would pay and Dinamo Bryansk were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Transfer targets12 Jul 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ural have kept their man, and Spartak Nalchik go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market12 Jul 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Rostislav Kurdyumov 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.
Market12 Jul 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Innokentiy Kokorin 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout24 May 2027
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Market24 May 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Spartak Nalchik is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad24 May 2027
Renat Balkizov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 May 2027
Alan Khachirov 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.
Market24 May 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Alan Khachirov’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 May 2027
Aslanbek Kumykov damages knee ligaments — 30 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
The dugout3 May 2027
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Market3 May 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Spartak Nalchik is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad3 May 2027
Alan Khachirov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 May 2027
David Sarbashev 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.
Boardroom3 May 2027
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Spartak Nalchik now.
The dugout3 May 2027
“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.
Market3 May 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Renat Balkizov’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout3 May 2027
Ismail Zhaboev knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Spartak Nalchik, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Apr 2027
58 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Spartak Nalchik lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market5 Apr 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 Spartak Nalchik, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
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Market5 Apr 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Spartak Nalchik is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad5 Apr 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 Spartak Nalchik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Akhmed Kumyshev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Makar Kozhemyakin, and the manager let it.
Squad5 Apr 2027
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
Market5 Apr 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Spartak Nalchik know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad22 Feb 2027
100 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Spartak Nalchik lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market22 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 Spartak Nalchik, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
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Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
The deal with Sevastopol is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Alan Khachirov 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.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
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.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Alan Khachirov
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Boardroom22 Feb 2027
Wages eat 87% of everything Spartak Nalchik earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Market22 Feb 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Soslan Lysenko signs something — a contract at Spartak Nalchik or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Feb 2027
Aslanbek Kumykov damages knee ligaments — 107 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 107 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.
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 Spartak Nalchik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market15 Feb 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Spartak Nalchik people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Alan Khachirov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
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.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
Murom have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Vasily Dyachkov, and the manager let it.
Market15 Feb 2027
The Islam Tlupov talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Spartak Nalchik know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad15 Feb 2027
A season on the outside for Danil Zhdanov
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Spartak Nalchik has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 26. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Market4 Jan 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Spartak Nalchik is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Alan Khachirov 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.
Match2 Jan 2027
3 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.
Market4 Jan 2027
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Alan Khachirov has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Spartak Nalchik.
Match2 Jan 2027
0‑1 to Druzhba, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Fedor Dzyuba to a room that had heard them before.
Squad4 Jan 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Islam Tlupov
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Islam Tlupov has come out of that comparison in the side, and Spartak Nalchik have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market21 Sep 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 ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 24. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Market21 Sep 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Spartak Nalchik they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Nalchik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
At 14 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match19 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Islam Tlupov. 1‑0 against Dinamo Makhachkala 2, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.20 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Fedor Dzyuba, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Looking ahead21 Sep 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Rostov 2 in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.