Marked for Valentin Glushakov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Aug 2026
The cup run ends for Chertanovo
1‑4 against Znamya Truda, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
A cup hiding at Znamya Truda leaves Chertanovo explaining themselves
1-4, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
Squad24 Aug 2026
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Dinamo Vladivostok, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Chertanovo asked and Dinamo Moscow said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Chertanovo
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Polyakov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Marked 8.28 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑4 defeat, delivered by Lev Kharlamov to a room that had heard them before.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Aug 2026
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
No thanks: Maxim Yurin rejects the move
Chertanovo had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Dinamo Moscow, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rodina have kept their man, and Chertanovo go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Chertanovo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Polyakov 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Dinamo Vologda left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout17 Aug 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
German Mikadze 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 dugout17 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Lev Kharlamov to a room that had heard them before.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 11. 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$84.0K on the table at Astrakhan. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets10 Aug 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Dmitry Kondrashov 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.
Match8 Aug 2026
0‑2 to Torpedo Vladimir, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Yuri Zabelin has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Yakov Alenin is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Valentin Glushakov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Sergey Nikolaev is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Lev Kharlamov after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.