Marked for Alexandr Ermakov
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market28 Feb 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.
Boardroom28 Feb 2028
Window shuts: 0 in, 1 out at Rubin Yalta
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 0 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Transfer targets28 Feb 2028
Rubin Yalta had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Avangard, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Boardroom28 Feb 2028
The numbers do not look good at Rubin Yalta
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.
Transfer targets28 Feb 2028
Rubin Yalta asked and Avangard said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Grigory Tarnov 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.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
“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.
Market28 Feb 2028
The Artem Ntumba story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Artem Ntumba signs something — a contract at Rubin Yalta or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Nikita Poberezhny has written the date down.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market14 Feb 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 Feb 2028
A muscle injury and 14 days out for Danil Polyakh
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Rubin Yalta will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
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.
Squad14 Feb 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 Rubin Yalta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
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 dugout14 Feb 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Georgy Tuaev, and the manager let it.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
Rubin Yalta have made the call to Avangard. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
Danil Polyakh asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market14 Feb 2028
The name of Vyacheslav Purak keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Rubin Yalta say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Apr 2027
A fracture rules Vyacheslav Purak out for 72 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Rubin Yalta will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market19 Apr 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Rubin Yalta is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Savely Ratnikov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
Georgy Tuaev gets it from the manager
“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.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
Alexandr Ermakov asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Market19 Apr 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Georgy Tuaev’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market19 Apr 2027
2 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Rubin Yalta money.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Apr 2027
86 days out for Vyacheslav Purak after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Rubin Yalta will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market5 Apr 2027
“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.
Market5 Apr 2027
Ilja Ivanov has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Rubin Yalta they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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 Rubin Yalta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
The manager makes an example of Danil Polyakh
“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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nikita Panamarev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.99, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad30 Nov 2026
A season average of 7.31 with 15 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Savely Ratnikov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match28 Nov 2026
Three points for Rubin Yalta, 2‑0 the final word against Druzhba in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nikita Panamarev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
113% of the income goes out in wages at Rubin Yalta
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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Roman Balabanov could afford to be generous.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market19 Oct 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rubin Yalta can pretend not to have heard.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Maxim Tarasenko 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 dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Georgy Tuaev
“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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nikita Panamarev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad19 Oct 2026
100 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Rubin Yalta told Georgy Tuaev something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
11 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
Match17 Oct 2026
Point won or two lost for Rubin Yalta?
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Angusht? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Sep 2026
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
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 Rubin Yalta this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Alexandr Smirnov ran the middle of the pitch — 7.50
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 14 combined actions and a mark of 7.50, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Beka Djanelidze was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.65. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Transfer targets21 Sep 2026
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 dugout21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Danil Polyakh, and the manager let it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Rubin Yalta training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikita Panamarev 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 dugout21 Sep 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑1, Roman Balabanov could afford to be generous.