Marked for Viktor Vasin
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match20 Jan 2029
Whatever happens, Zenit 2 do not lose
26 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match20 Jan 2029
Torpedo Vladimir will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Zenit 2 were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings22 Jan 2029
Two goals and a mark of 8.34 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match20 Jan 2029
Zenit 2 make home a hard place to visit
13 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad22 Jan 2029
Nüraly Älip 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 Zenit 2 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces22 Jan 2029
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.
Player ratings22 Jan 2029
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.16, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad22 Jan 2029
5 goals and a season average of 7.33. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
The dugout22 Jan 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Aleksandr Nikolaev kept it short after the 3‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match18 Dec 2028
48 points and nobody above them. The word is not being said around the ground yet, and it is being thought in every seat.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Danila Gaivoronskiy, and the manager let it.
Looking ahead18 Dec 2028
Top-of-the-table clash for Zenit 2
Murom next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
Nüraly Älip has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Zenit 2 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.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Zenit 2, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Market18 Dec 2028
6 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Zenit 2 could get for him.
Market18 Dec 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Dmitry Shumikhin’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad18 Dec 2028
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match22 Nov 2028
Cup progress for Zenit
A 6‑0 win over Dinamo Kirov, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings27 Nov 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.31 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match25 Nov 2028
11 unbeaten for Zenit
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 11 matches without defeat is a foundation Zenit did not have in the autumn.
Match22 Nov 2028
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Zenit and Dinamo Kirov, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Player ratings27 Nov 2028
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The terraces27 Nov 2028
Zenit supporters have found a favourite in Viktor Vasin
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 16-year-old it feels ownership of. Viktor Vasin 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 ratings27 Nov 2028
A performance of 8.47 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings27 Nov 2028
Ninety minutes of El Mehdi Maouhoub at his very best
Marked 8.40. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Zenit.
Squad27 Nov 2028
Words exchanged at Zenit
Artem Karpukas 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Jul 2028
“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.
Squad24 Jul 2028
A move Lucas Olaza would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Lucas Olaza is living that version at Zenit, and it tends to show in the first month.
Player ratings24 Jul 2028
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Jul 2028
Tempers go at Zenit
Tamerlan Musaev 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 Jul 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Viktor Vasin and Zenit agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market24 Jul 2028
Zenit bring in an old head
Lucas Olaza is 34 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
The dugout24 Jul 2028
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Danila Fadeev after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Squad24 Jul 2028
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Zenit are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout24 Jul 2028
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jindřich Staněk is on it.