Marked for Evgeny Ushakov
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings30 Sep 2030
Two goals and a mark of 9.10 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match28 Sep 2030
The 88th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Ilja Grischenko decided nobody was going anywhere. Kuban had no time left to answer.
Player ratings30 Sep 2030
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
Match28 Sep 2030
Kaluga are at home on the road
5 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Match28 Sep 2030
Kaluga make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Kaluga have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad30 Sep 2030
A falling-out at Kaluga
Ilja Grischenko and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad30 Sep 2030
Words at Kaluga training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rinat Garaev 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.
Match28 Sep 2030
It finished 2‑1, and it was Ilja Grischenko’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Kaluga.
Squad30 Sep 2030
28 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings2 Sep 2030
Successful dribbles: 30. 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.
Squad2 Sep 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kaluga this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Sep 2030
57 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Match31 Aug 2030
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Match31 Aug 2030
After 5 games, Kaluga finally taste it again
The first defeat in 5 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Dinamo Vladivostok; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
The dugout2 Sep 2030
“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.
Boardroom2 Sep 2030
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Squad2 Sep 2030
Four weeks in which nobody in the division did his job better. The award goes on a shelf and the player goes back into the side, which is the order Kaluga prefer.
Market2 Sep 2030
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Kaluga were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market4 Feb 2030
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Kaluga people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market4 Feb 2030
“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.
Squad4 Feb 2030
Tempers go at Kaluga
Vladislav Yampolskiy 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.
Boardroom4 Feb 2030
Kaluga counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Kaluga now.
Market4 Feb 2030
The phone has started ringing about Oleg Lapaev again, and this time the name on the line is Sevastopol. Kaluga are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad4 Feb 2030
A row about effort at Kaluga
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lev Ivanushkin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad4 Feb 2030
The medical room confirms 38 days on the sidelines for Evgeny Ushakov, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Transfer targets4 Feb 2030
A loan move for Sergey Starkov is in the works
Kaluga have made the call to Leningradets. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Market4 Feb 2030
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Amur Balkizov has his answer from Kaluga; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings1 Oct 2029
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings1 Oct 2029
Two goals and a mark of 8.94 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market1 Oct 2029
“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.
Market1 Oct 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kaluga is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match29 Sep 2029
Kaluga are at home on the road
5 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Match29 Sep 2029
Nobody wants to play Kaluga right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad1 Oct 2029
A falling-out at Kaluga
Vladislav Yampolskiy and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match29 Sep 2029
Kuban made Kaluga work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings1 Oct 2029
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.11, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
In brief
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Squad
Artem Kuzmin falls out with a teammate over standards
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Player ratings
Wrong net for Evgeny Ushakov
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The dugout
The view from the dugout