The Nart Gazette
Market16 Jul 2029
Magomed-Deni Tsutsulaev agrees terms with Rubin Yalta
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Nart people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market16 Jul 2029
Facundo Ospitaleche 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 Nart can pretend not to have heard.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Alexandr Metsiev is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Boardroom16 Jul 2029
Nart to lose Akhmed Davlitgereev for free
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Akhmed Davlitgereev has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Home is on Facundo Ospitaleche's mind
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Nart are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad16 Jul 2029
A falling-out at Nart
Alexandr Olenev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Akhmed Ismailov has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Boardroom16 Jul 2029
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Nart
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Transfer targets16 Jul 2029
Irkutsk tell Nart: Sergey Starkov is not for sale
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.
In brief
- Market Nart promote Fedot Zaitsev from within
- Market Nart promote Anton Nikolaev from within
- Boardroom A promise the Nart board did not keep