Marked for Aleksei Fedoseev
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 May 2027
Aleksei Fedoseev damages knee ligaments — 14 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
Squad24 May 2027
A falling-out at Mashuk
Oleg Suvorov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom24 May 2027
Mashuk counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Mashuk now.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Mashuk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Astemir Abazov 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.
The dugout24 May 2027
“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.
The dugout24 May 2027
Tamaz Topuria knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tamaz Topuria trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 May 2027
21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Mashuk lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market17 May 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Mashuk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad17 May 2027
Astemir Abazov 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.
Squad17 May 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 Mashuk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom17 May 2027
120% of the income goes out in wages at Mashuk
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
Market17 May 2027
The name of Tamaz Topuria keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Mashuk say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Aleksei Fedoseev
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Mashuk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market10 May 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Mashuk they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad10 May 2027
At 21, Andrey Domotsev is already the best thing here
An average of 7.14 in a first team he is several years too young for. Mashuk have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 May 2027
Aleksei Fedoseev damages knee ligaments — 35 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Match3 May 2027
Mashuk are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 25 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market3 May 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Vladimir Shaikhutdinov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Mashuk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad3 May 2027
Astemir Abazov 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.
Squad3 May 2027
Words exchanged at Mashuk
Alexandr Butenko 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.
Market3 May 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Mashuk know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.