Marked for Dejan Ulmer
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom3 Jan 2033
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market3 Jan 2033
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sevastopol can pretend not to have heard.
Squad3 Jan 2033
Eshonxon Jahbarov 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.
Match1 Jan 2033
1‑3 to Neftyanik, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Boardroom3 Jan 2033
$200.1K from the owner keeps Sevastopol afloat
The gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
Squad3 Jan 2033
A row about effort at Sevastopol
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Denys Zelentsov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom3 Jan 2033
Wages eat 275% 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.
Squad3 Jan 2033
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Sevastopol is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Market3 Jan 2033
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sevastopol, another week without a signature from Khabib Agalarov.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market20 Dec 2032
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.
Market20 Dec 2032
Makar Shishov hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sevastopol can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout20 Dec 2032
This is not rotation. Muslim Bammatgereev has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Sevastopol is pretending otherwise.
Squad20 Dec 2032
Words at Sevastopol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denys Zelentsov 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.
Match18 Dec 2032
Torpedo Miass made Sevastopol work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
The dugout20 Dec 2032
The manager makes an example of Denys Zelentsov
“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 ratings20 Dec 2032
Marked 6.68 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Player ratings20 Dec 2032
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.78 on the card, and the Sevastopol support went home talking about one name.
Squad20 Dec 2032
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.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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Squad
Jacopo Vuolo finally opens his account
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The dugout
A promise honoured for Dejan Ulmer
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces19 Apr 2032
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.
Squad19 Apr 2032
A knee injury of the worst kind for Frederik Gytkjær
48 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.
Boardroom19 Apr 2032
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.
Market19 Apr 2032
Dejan Ulmer hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sevastopol can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings19 Apr 2032
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.53 for the rest of it.
Squad19 Apr 2032
Adam Ďurdík and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Apr 2032
A row about effort at Sevastopol
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nazar Zubovich was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match17 Apr 2032
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Boardroom19 Apr 2032
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad29 Mar 2032
A knee injury of the worst kind for Frederik Gytkjær
69 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.
Market29 Mar 2032
“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.
Squad29 Mar 2032
Ivan Pchelintsev 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.
Squad29 Mar 2032
Nazar Zubovich 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.
Boardroom29 Mar 2032
Wages swallow 255% 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 dugout29 Mar 2032
“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.
Market29 Mar 2032
The clock does Kirill Zakharov’s negotiating for him
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Sevastopol could ask drops and the wages Kirill Zakharov can ask rise.
Market29 Mar 2032
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Kirill Zakharov signs something — a contract at Sevastopol or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Looking ahead29 Mar 2032
Next up at home: Kuban Holding, who go into it in position 15. The kind of fixture a season is quietly built on or quietly loses its shape in.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad8 Mar 2032
A knee injury of the worst kind for Frederik Gytkjær
90 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.
Boardroom8 Mar 2032
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Player ratings8 Mar 2032
A brace, and Danil Simakov takes the afternoon — 8.06
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Danil Simakov provided it, and the 8.06 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market8 Mar 2032
Dejan Ulmer hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sevastopol can pretend not to have heard.
Match6 Mar 2032
The wait goes on for Sevastopol
5 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.
Squad8 Mar 2032
Adam Ďurdík 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 Sevastopol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom8 Mar 2032
$186.6K of the owner's money at Sevastopol
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Squad8 Mar 2032
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Sevastopol is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Squad8 Mar 2032
Nazar Zubovich 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
Uneasy
Boardroom5 Jan 2032
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Squad5 Jan 2032
7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Market5 Jan 2032
“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.
Squad5 Jan 2032
Adam Ďurdík and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom5 Jan 2032
The owner puts $180.3K into Sevastopol
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Squad5 Jan 2032
Nazar Zubovich 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.
Boardroom5 Jan 2032
Wages eat 204% 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.
The terraces5 Jan 2032
He is 22 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.
Match3 Jan 2032
Three points for Sevastopol, 1‑0 the final word against Neftyanik in a contest settled by the finer margins.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 Nov 2031
4 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market17 Nov 2031
“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.
Squad17 Nov 2031
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Sevastopol will quote 17 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad17 Nov 2031
Ilja Medvedev 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.
Squad17 Nov 2031
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Sevastopol can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad17 Nov 2031
Words at Sevastopol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nazar Zubovich 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 dugout17 Nov 2031
Gabriel Xuereb knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Gabriel Xuereb trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market17 Nov 2031
7 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Sevastopol could get for him.
Looking ahead17 Nov 2031
Looking ahead: Orenburg 2 at home
A side in position 18 visits next. The result will not make anybody’s season and it could quietly break the shape of one, which is why the manager has been watching the video since Sunday.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match18 Oct 2031
No end in sight to Sevastopol's wait for a win
20 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Sevastopol has to find a result from somewhere.
Match20 Oct 2031
Sevastopol are in real trouble now
Position 20, 3 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Market20 Oct 2031
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sevastopol can pretend not to have heard.
Squad20 Oct 2031
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.
Match18 Oct 2031
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout20 Oct 2031
“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.
The dugout20 Oct 2031
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
Market20 Oct 2031
“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.
Squad20 Oct 2031
“I want to play”: Dejan Ulmer speaks
“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
Crisis
Market13 Oct 2031
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sevastopol can pretend not to have heard.
Squad13 Oct 2031
Adam Ďurdík and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad13 Oct 2031
Words at Sevastopol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nazar Zubovich 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.
Boardroom13 Oct 2031
Wages eat 183% 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.
Boardroom13 Oct 2031
The borrowing at Sevastopol reaches $2.8M
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $2.8M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
Market13 Oct 2031
“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.
The dugout13 Oct 2031
Nazar Zubovich knocks on the manager's door
“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.
Market13 Oct 2031
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Eduards Kamess has his answer from Sevastopol; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Market13 Oct 2031
The Adam Ďurdík story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Adam Ďurdík signs something — a contract at Sevastopol or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match13 Sep 2031
16 matches without a win for Sevastopol
The run now stands at 16, and the questions being asked around Sevastopol are no longer polite ones.
Squad15 Sep 2031
22 days out for Ivan Pchelintsev after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Sevastopol will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market15 Sep 2031
“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.
Squad15 Sep 2031
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.
Squad15 Sep 2031
Words at Sevastopol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Muslim Bammatgereev 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.
Transfer targets15 Sep 2031
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.
Boardroom15 Sep 2031
151% 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.
Market15 Sep 2031
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
Boardroom15 Sep 2031
The borrowing at Sevastopol reaches $2.8M
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $2.8M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.