Marked for Christopher Collins
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Feb 2041
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 24 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market18 Feb 2041
“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 The request is on a desk at Spartak Moscow, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad18 Feb 2041
Jeremías Lucco gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jeremías Lucco has just signed for Spartak Moscow, and for once the answer mattered.
Market18 Feb 2041
The bid was some way short and Spartak Moscow did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market18 Feb 2041
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Squad18 Feb 2041
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Feb 2041
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 38 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad4 Feb 2041
A one-man rearguard from Marcel Łubik
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad4 Feb 2041
23 goals and a season average of 7.39. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Market4 Feb 2041
The offer from Fakel for Denis Fedoseev was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market4 Feb 2041
Igor Dmitriev wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Spartak Moscow hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad4 Feb 2041
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Christopher Wooh commits to Spartak Moscow for another 2 years.
Match2 Feb 2041
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Spartak Moscow are no longer polite ones.
Market4 Feb 2041
SKA Khabarovsk are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Spartak Moscow will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Match2 Feb 2041
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Jan 2041
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 59 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match9 Jan 2041
Druzhba are out and Spartak Moscow go through, 4‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Market14 Jan 2041
The offer from Crvena Zvezda for Matvey Kislyak was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Player ratings14 Jan 2041
A brace, and Aleksandr Shestakov takes the afternoon — 9.20
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Aleksandr Shestakov provided it, and the 9.20 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings14 Jan 2041
Two goals and a mark of 8.50 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad14 Jan 2041
Christopher Wooh 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.
Match12 Jan 2041
Spartak Moscow make home a hard place to visit
11 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.
The terraces14 Jan 2041
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Denis Fedoseev 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.
Squad14 Jan 2041
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 Dec 2040
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Spartak Moscow have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad31 Dec 2040
Christopher Wooh 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.
Market31 Dec 2040
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Spartak Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match29 Dec 2040
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Spartak Moscow did not have in the autumn.
Match29 Dec 2040
9 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Match29 Dec 2040
A 1‑0 win over Rostov, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad31 Dec 2040
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Spartak Moscow pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Player ratings31 Dec 2040
Leonardo Rodella was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.02. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings31 Dec 2040
Defensive actions: 18. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match1 Dec 2040
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.
Squad3 Dec 2040
511 appearances across 14 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Spartak Moscow know what they have.
Squad3 Dec 2040
20 goals and a season average of 7.38. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Player ratings3 Dec 2040
Age has not caught Igor Dmitriev yet — 8.20
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.20 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market3 Dec 2040
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Spartak Moscow heard it as anything else.
Squad3 Dec 2040
Christopher Wooh 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.
Market3 Dec 2040
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Christopher Collins will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartak Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings3 Dec 2040
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.
Squad3 Dec 2040
Denis Fedoseev 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
Steady
Match3 Nov 2040
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Ilja Ivarlak will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Spartak Moscow escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Squad5 Nov 2040
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad5 Nov 2040
487 appearances across 15 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Player ratings5 Nov 2040
At 39 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.34 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad5 Nov 2040
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market5 Nov 2040
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Spartak Moscow is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market5 Nov 2040
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Spartak Moscow heard it as anything else.
Squad5 Nov 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match3 Nov 2040
It finished 3‑3, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match6 Oct 2040
Losing 2‑3 is one thing; losing to Lokomotiv Moscow in a derby is a wound that takes months to close.
Match3 Oct 2040
A 3‑1 win over Strogino, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings8 Oct 2040
Two goals and a mark of 8.87 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad8 Oct 2040
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.
Squad8 Oct 2040
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad8 Oct 2040
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Igor Dmitriev and Spartak Moscow agree another 2 years.
Squad8 Oct 2040
Christopher Wooh 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.
Market8 Oct 2040
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Spartak Moscow is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings8 Oct 2040
Christopher Collins was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.21. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 Sep 2040
Sergei Shubin breaks a bone — 40 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 40 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad10 Sep 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market10 Sep 2040
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Christopher Collins will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartak Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match8 Sep 2040
Krasnodar left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad10 Sep 2040
Denis Fedoseev 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.
Squad10 Sep 2040
The manager makes an example of Ovie Ejeheri
“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.
Boardroom10 Sep 2040
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Market10 Sep 2040
Torpedo Moscow are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Spartak Moscow will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Player ratings10 Sep 2040
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
Upbeat
Squad20 Aug 2040
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.
Player ratings20 Aug 2040
Age has not caught Valerio Crespi yet — 9.62
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.62 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad20 Aug 2040
A one-man rearguard from Marcel Łubik
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market20 Aug 2040
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad20 Aug 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Aug 2040
Words at Spartak Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denis Fedoseev 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 ratings20 Aug 2040
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Jul 2040
Sergei Shubin damages knee ligaments — 29 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 29 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.
Squad16 Jul 2040
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad16 Jul 2040
Goncalo Tavares gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Goncalo Tavares has just signed for Spartak Moscow, and for once the answer mattered.
Market16 Jul 2040
Business is business: Jack Ross goes
Boca Juniors paid $4.3M and Spartak Moscow took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Market16 Jul 2040
Chaika did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $1.3M for Goncalo Tavares, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Squad16 Jul 2040
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Denis Fedoseev is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market12 Mar 2040
Ilja Rozhkov has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Spartak Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market12 Mar 2040
Rotor come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Spartak Moscow did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad12 Mar 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Mar 2040
Words at Spartak Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denis Fedoseev 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.
Squad12 Mar 2040
Christopher Wooh has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Spartak Moscow 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.
Squad12 Mar 2040
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match22 Feb 2040
93 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad27 Feb 2040
Marcel Łubik is the hero from the spot
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Marcel Łubik: 4 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Match22 Feb 2040
Yenisey are out and Spartak Moscow go through, 1‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match27 Feb 2040
Position 2 and 68 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market27 Feb 2040
The offer from Neftekhimik for Ilja Rozhkov was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market27 Feb 2040
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Spartak Moscow can pretend not to have heard.
Squad27 Feb 2040
Ignacio Sánchez: 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.” Spartak Moscow have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market27 Feb 2040
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Nikita Massalyga reports back to Spartak Moscow with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Squad27 Feb 2040
Matvey Kislyak 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match8 Oct 2039
82 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Match5 Oct 2039
Tver are out and Spartak Moscow go through, 2‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match10 Oct 2039
Spartak Moscow refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 32 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Market10 Oct 2039
“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 Spartak Moscow, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market10 Oct 2039
Only the photograph left for João Borne
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. João Borne will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartak Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings10 Oct 2039
Two goals and a mark of 8.13 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad10 Oct 2039
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Oct 2039
Igor Dmitriev 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.
Player ratings10 Oct 2039
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match23 May 2039
Spartak Moscow refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 74 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad23 May 2039
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Spartak Moscow may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad23 May 2039
Christopher Wooh 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.
Market23 May 2039
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Spartak Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad23 May 2039
Thomás De Martis 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.
Market23 May 2039
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Spartak Moscow heard it as anything else.
Squad23 May 2039
The manager has not finished forgetting Thomás De Martis'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.
Market23 May 2039
The name of Ovie Ejeheri keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Spartak Moscow say nothing, which says plenty.
Boardroom23 May 2039
The Spartak Moscow production line keeps running
118 graduates out of an academy now rated 9 out of 20. Clubs this size survive on exactly that, and the town knows every name.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match25 Apr 2039
Spartak Moscow refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 74 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Market25 Apr 2039
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Christopher Collins will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartak Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad25 Apr 2039
Igor Dmitriev 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.
Squad25 Apr 2039
Ovie Ejeheri 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 Spartak Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Apr 2039
The manager makes an example of Diego Costa
“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.
Squad25 Apr 2039
The manager has not finished forgetting Thomás De Martis'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.
Market25 Apr 2039
Spartak Moscow have let the market know Thomás De Martis can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Market25 Apr 2039
The name of Ovie Ejeheri keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Spartak Moscow say nothing, which says plenty.
Market25 Apr 2039
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Evgeniy Tolstoy leaves Spartak Moscow the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.