Marked for Dmitriy Mikheev
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match15 Aug 2035
Astrakhan are out and Rubin Yalta go through, 2‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Squad20 Aug 2035
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings20 Aug 2035
Marked 7.82 at 19, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Match18 Aug 2035
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Rubin Yalta have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad20 Aug 2035
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.
Match18 Aug 2035
Three points for Rubin Yalta, 3‑1 the final word against Sevastopol in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Transfer targets20 Aug 2035
Rubin Yalta asked and Amkar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad20 Aug 2035
Sergey Tsindrik 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.
The terraces20 Aug 2035
At 19 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market2 Jul 2035
“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.
The dugout2 Jul 2035
This is not rotation. Pavel Plotnikov has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Rubin Yalta is pretending otherwise.
Squad2 Jul 2035
Artem Kulikov 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.
Transfer targets2 Jul 2035
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.
Boardroom2 Jul 2035
Wages eat 186% of everything Rubin Yalta earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Boardroom2 Jul 2035
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Market2 Jul 2035
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Transfer targets2 Jul 2035
Amkar have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets2 Jul 2035
A loan enquiry to PSK Pervorechenskoe: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets18 Jun 2035
Everything agreed with Amkar, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad18 Jun 2035
Artem Kulikov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Jun 2035
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sergey Tsindrik was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout18 Jun 2035
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Pavel Plotnikov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market18 Jun 2035
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Rubin Yalta know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 May 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Giorgi Arabidze
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Rubin Yalta lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad21 May 2035
Artem Kulikov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout21 May 2035
Giorgi Arabidze 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.
Market21 May 2035
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Gabriele Baraldi has his answer from Rubin Yalta; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout21 May 2035
“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.
Market21 May 2035
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Rubin Yalta know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market26 Feb 2035
“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.
Market26 Feb 2035
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Rubin Yalta have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Boardroom26 Feb 2035
Rubin Yalta close the window on a squad of their own making
0 in and 4 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Squad26 Feb 2035
Artem Kulikov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets26 Feb 2035
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Neftekhimik have kept their man, and Rubin Yalta go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match24 Feb 2035
It finished 2‑1, and it was Georgy Borisov’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Rubin Yalta.
Player ratings26 Feb 2035
Marked 8.26 — 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.
The dugout26 Feb 2035
No place for Hugo Delaye on the big day
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Rubin Yalta pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Squad26 Feb 2035
Words at Rubin Yalta training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Harry Phillips 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.