Marked for Dmitriy Gromov
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad23 Oct 2028
Dmitriy Gromov damages knee ligaments — 16 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 16 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.
Squad23 Oct 2028
4 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Match21 Oct 2028
Three points for Irkutsk, 5‑3 the final word against Kolomna in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Match21 Oct 2028
Modou Jarju among the goals in a wild afternoon
8 goals in one match, Modou Jarju on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Irkutsk and Kolomna.
Player ratings23 Oct 2028
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Andi Vidal 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 terraces23 Oct 2028
At 16 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.
Squad23 Oct 2028
A season average of 7.21 with 12 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings23 Oct 2028
A performance of 8.54 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad16 Oct 2028
Dmitriy Gromov damages knee ligaments — 23 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
Match14 Oct 2028
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad16 Oct 2028
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Market16 Oct 2028
“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 Irkutsk, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Yegor Vedernikov 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.
Player ratings16 Oct 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.41, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Words at Irkutsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andi Vidal 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.
The terraces16 Oct 2028
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Yegor Vedernikov has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings16 Oct 2028
Successful dribbles: 11. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Oct 2028
Dmitriy Gromov damages knee ligaments — 30 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
Match4 Oct 2028
The cup run ends for Irkutsk
1‑3 against Nizhniy Novgorod, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad9 Oct 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Irkutsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings9 Oct 2028
Nobody could get near Andi Vidal
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Oct 2028
The manager makes an example of Leon Borković
“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.
Boardroom9 Oct 2028
93% of the income goes out in wages at Irkutsk
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad2 Oct 2028
Dmitriy Gromov damages knee ligaments — 37 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
Match2 Oct 2028
Irkutsk up to position 3
23 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Match30 Sep 2028
10 unbeaten for Irkutsk
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 10 matches without defeat is a foundation Irkutsk did not have in the autumn.
Match30 Sep 2028
A 3‑1 win over Luki-Energiya, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Words at Irkutsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andi Vidal 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.
Player ratings2 Oct 2028
One of those days for Andi Vidal
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.53, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings2 Oct 2028
Ninety minutes of Yegor Lipaev at his very best
Marked 8.26. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Irkutsk.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Player ratings2 Oct 2028
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
In brief
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Squad
A place in the month's best eleven for Andi Vidal
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Boardroom
The numbers do not look good at Irkutsk
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Market
The Leon Borković talk will not go away
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Jul 2028
Nikita Korolev: 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.” Irkutsk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings17 Jul 2028
Andi Vidal runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Vadim Grinvald is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad17 Jul 2028
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Irkutsk are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Boardroom17 Jul 2028
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Irkutsk
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Match15 Jul 2028
Modou Jarju scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to Saturn, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Market17 Jul 2028
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Ilya Zinovyev 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.
Market17 Jul 2028
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Yefrem Vinogradov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market17 Jul 2028
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Sergei Plyushkin is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.