Marked for Mark Mikhaylov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The dugout11 Jun 2029
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Sevastopol may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad11 Jun 2029
Dmitry Polukhin and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Jun 2029
Lev Potapov 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 dugout11 Jun 2029
This is not rotation. Vyacheslav Ivanov has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Sevastopol is pretending otherwise.
Boardroom11 Jun 2029
The borrowing at Sevastopol reaches $3.0M
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $3.0M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
Boardroom11 Jun 2029
Wages swallow 113% of the Sevastopol income
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
The dugout11 Jun 2029
The manager has not finished forgetting Islam Pekov's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Market11 Jun 2029
The shop window has Yury Maximov in it
Sevastopol have let the market know Yury Maximov can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Squad11 Jun 2029
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Sevastopol would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market9 Apr 2029
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sevastopol they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match7 Apr 2029
5 matches without a win for Sevastopol
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Sevastopol are no longer polite ones.
Squad9 Apr 2029
“The easiest signature of my career.” Muslim Bammatgereev and Sevastopol agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Vladyslav Hevlych 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.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Lev Potapov 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.
Match7 Apr 2029
Kuban Holding left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Boardroom9 Apr 2029
No fees may be paid for anybody, whatever the squad needs. Every rumour about this club until it lifts is a rumour about a deal that cannot be done.
The dugout9 Apr 2029
The manager makes an example of Rustem Klimanov
“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.
Player ratings9 Apr 2029
Successful dribbles: 18. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
In brief
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Loan watch
William Nyborg wants to come home
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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The dugout
Somebody else is better right now than Mark Mikhaylov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces26 Mar 2029
Anger at Sevastopol spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Boardroom26 Mar 2029
Pressure builds in the Sevastopol boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market26 Mar 2029
“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 Sevastopol, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match24 Mar 2029
The wait goes on for Sevastopol
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.
Player ratings26 Mar 2029
Both jobs done by Adam Ďurdík — 6.74
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 15 actions, 6.74, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Squad26 Mar 2029
Muslim Bammatgereev 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.
Market26 Mar 2029
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Rustem Klimanov has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Sevastopol.
Match24 Mar 2029
Kyzyltash left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout26 Mar 2029
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Aleksei Pereverzev after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings19 Mar 2029
Albert Bero, 19, steals the show — 7.61
Marked 7.61 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.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Lev Potapov 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 dugout19 Mar 2029
Lev Potapov gets it from the manager
“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.
Boardroom19 Mar 2029
Wages eat 127% of everything Sevastopol 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.
Boardroom19 Mar 2029
Sevastopol are $3.0M in the red
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
The dugout19 Mar 2029
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Aleksei Pereverzev after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout19 Mar 2029
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sevastopol, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad19 Mar 2029
Albert Bero is the weekend's best young player
At 19 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Mar 2029
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 15 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Market12 Mar 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sevastopol is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Transfer targets12 Mar 2029
Sevastopol asked and Irtysh said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Muslim Bammatgereev 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.
Match10 Mar 2029
Zarya Lugansk left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Boardroom12 Mar 2029
No fees may be paid for anybody, whatever the squad needs. Every rumour about this club until it lifts is a rumour about a deal that cannot be done.
Squad12 Mar 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sevastopol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout12 Mar 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Aleksei Pereverzev left the room before anybody could ask which.
Market12 Mar 2029
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match30 Dec 2028
14 matches without a win for Sevastopol
The run now stands at 14, and the questions being asked around Sevastopol are no longer polite ones.
Squad1 Jan 2029
67 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sevastopol lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces1 Jan 2029
Supporters organise against the Sevastopol board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Boardroom1 Jan 2029
Pressure builds in the Sevastopol boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad1 Jan 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sevastopol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Jan 2029
A row about effort at Sevastopol
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lev Potapov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match30 Dec 2028
1‑2 to Shakhter Donetsk, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout1 Jan 2029
The manager makes an example of Rustem Klimanov
“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.
Match30 Dec 2028
Sevastopol hit back inside 4 minutes
Shakhter Donetsk held the lead for 4 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Sevastopol answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad18 Dec 2028
The words a physio says slowly. 81 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match16 Dec 2028
No end in sight to Sevastopol's wait for a win
12 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Sevastopol has to find a result from somewhere.
Market18 Dec 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sevastopol is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings18 Dec 2028
7.11, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Dmitry Polukhin 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 terraces18 Dec 2028
He is 15 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Boardroom18 Dec 2028
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.
Match16 Dec 2028
Sevastopol rescue it on 88 minutes
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 88. Torpedo Miass had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Boardroom18 Dec 2028
Sevastopol are $3.0M in the red
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market15 May 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sevastopol is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad15 May 2028
Isak Bahtijaragic 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.
Squad15 May 2028
A row about effort at Sevastopol
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Muslim Bammatgereev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout15 May 2028
This is not rotation. Miroslav Polunin has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Sevastopol is pretending otherwise.
Boardroom15 May 2028
110% of the income goes out in wages at Sevastopol
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The dugout15 May 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mark Mikhaylov, and the manager let it.