Marked for Sergey Rybakov
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Jun 2034
A knee injury of the worst kind for Rizvan Tashaev
94 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kaluga lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad12 Jun 2034
A fracture rules Nazar Bondar out for 119 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Kaluga will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market12 Jun 2034
“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.
Market12 Jun 2034
David Haroyan has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Kaluga they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom12 Jun 2034
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad12 Jun 2034
Tempers go at Kaluga
Jonnier Torres 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom24 Oct 2033
Kaluga counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Kaluga now.
Market24 Oct 2033
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Kaluga, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market24 Oct 2033
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Zaurbek Ramonov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Kaluga the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad24 Oct 2033
Timothy Harris: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Kaluga have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad24 Oct 2033
Tempers go at Kaluga
Salim Adams 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.
Squad24 Oct 2033
The medical room confirms 20 days on the sidelines for Sergey Iljin, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market19 Sep 2033
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Kaluga, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad19 Sep 2033
Salim Adams in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad19 Sep 2033
Words at Kaluga training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Noa Karaselimović 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.
Squad19 Sep 2033
The manager makes an example of Sergey Krotov
“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 Sep 2033
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 Sep 2033
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Kaluga, another week without a signature from Filip Šušković-Jakopac.
In brief
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Market
The window shut and Felix Chapliev is still in the building
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Boardroom
The Kaluga production line keeps running
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market22 Aug 2033
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Kaluga, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings22 Aug 2033
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match20 Aug 2033
The wait goes on for Kaluga
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad22 Aug 2033
Tempers go at Kaluga
Ilja Grischenko 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.
Match20 Aug 2033
Kaluga cannot find the net
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad22 Aug 2033
Daud Daliev 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market25 Jul 2033
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kaluga can pretend not to have heard.
Squad25 Jul 2033
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.
Squad25 Jul 2033
Words at Kaluga training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daud Daliev 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.
Match23 Jul 2033
Igor Sokolov scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Avangard, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Player ratings25 Jul 2033
Marked 8.07 — 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.
Boardroom25 Jul 2033
Doors closed at Kaluga
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Market25 Jul 2033
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Kaluga will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad25 Jul 2033
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Tikhon Fedorov and Kaluga agree another 3 years.
Squad25 Jul 2033
Ilja Grischenko has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Kaluga will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market27 Jun 2033
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kaluga can pretend not to have heard.
Squad27 Jun 2033
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.
Squad27 Jun 2033
Words at Kaluga training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Felix Chapliev 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market30 May 2033
“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.
Squad30 May 2033
Thiago Gómez in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad30 May 2033
Words at Kaluga training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daud Daliev 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market2 May 2033
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kaluga can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom2 May 2033
The Kaluga board want somebody sold
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Squad2 May 2033
36 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.