Daniel Botka

Left Forward - Avangard
3 Oct 2032
Sunday
Process
Overview Personal Contract News 3 Transfers Relations Events 75 Awards Matches History

Marked for Daniel Botka

315 Edition

The Avangard Courier

9 Aug 2032
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Match7 Aug 2032

Whatever happens, Avangard do not lose

19 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.

Squad9 Aug 2032

Rizvan Tashaev keeps Avangard in it on his own

Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.

Squad9 Aug 2032

Daniel Botka keeps the receipts

“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Avangard may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.

Squad9 Aug 2032

Danila Knyazev in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Squad9 Aug 2032

Yahor Hleb gets the move he always wanted

Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Yahor Hleb has just signed for Avangard, and for once the answer mattered.

Market9 Aug 2032

David Sarbashev attracts admirers

The name of David Sarbashev has come up in conversations Avangard were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.

Match7 Aug 2032

Avangard make home a hard place to visit

9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.

Boardroom9 Aug 2032

Emil Kajević will join Avangard for nothing

The paperwork is done long before the player is. Emil Kajević has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Avangard have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.

Match7 Aug 2032

Avangard see off Kuban

Three points for Avangard, 2‑0 the final word against Kuban in a contest settled by the finer margins.

In brief

Back issues
265 Edition

The Avangard Courier

25 Aug 2031
From our football correspondent Triumph

Squad25 Aug 2031

A knee injury of the worst kind for David Sarbashev

26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avangard lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.

Match20 Aug 2031

Avangard march on in the cup

Kuban Holding are out and Avangard go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.

Match23 Aug 2031

Roque Maisterra wins it after the whistle should have gone

90 minutes played. Roque Maisterra found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Torpedo Miass went from a point to nothing inside one movement.

Match23 Aug 2031

Avangard make it 6 in a row

Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Avangard have 6 straight wins of it.

Player ratings25 Aug 2031

A debut Daniel Botka will not forget — 7.33

There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 0 on the scoresheet, 7.33 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.

Squad25 Aug 2031

Islam Magomedov says Avangard went back on their word

“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.

Market25 Aug 2031

Artemy Bludov 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 Avangard can pretend not to have heard.

Squad25 Aug 2031

Tempers go at Avangard

Danila Knyazev 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.

Player ratings25 Aug 2031

The game went through Danila Knyazev — 7.64

Marked 7.64 on 12 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.

In brief

256 Edition

The Avangard Courier

23 Jun 2031
From our football correspondent Crisis

Squad23 Jun 2031

David Sarbashev damages knee ligaments — 89 days out

The words a physio says slowly. 89 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.

Squad23 Jun 2031

Tempers go at Avangard

Danila Knyazev 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

Gordey Nefedov 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.

Boardroom23 Jun 2031

Avangard are $6.7M in the red

The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.

Market23 Jun 2031

Still no ink between Avangard and Roque Maisterra

“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Avangard, another week without a signature from Roque Maisterra.

Market23 Jun 2031

A long bet from Avangard on Daniel Botka

He is 19, and nobody at Avangard signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.

In brief