“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Lokomotiv Moscow heard it as anything else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lokomotiv Moscow is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Tommaso Orsini 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.
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.
11 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
Nobody at Lokomotiv 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.
Position 2, 64 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.
The fee is $1.2M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Neftekhimik drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Pedro Machado has just signed for Lokomotiv Moscow, and for once the answer mattered.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Matej Tomić will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiv Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Pavel Soucek has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Tommaso Orsini 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Lokomotiv Moscow training over how hard people work
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lokomotiv Moscow can pretend not to have heard.
The phone has started ringing about David Foster again, and this time the name on the line is Sokol. Lokomotiv Moscow are listening politely and promising nothing.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daniel Claesson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiv Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Georgy Karkuzaev 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiv Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Sergey Pinyaev 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daniel Claesson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiv Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad18 May 2043
Ivan Shilenok 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Lokomotiv Moscow know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
No fee and no fanfare: Artem Semin’s time at Lokomotiv Moscow ends with a handshake, and Rostov collect a player for the price of his wages. Somebody will call it shrewd; time will name who.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotiv Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergey Pinyaev 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.
Maxim Mukhin 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.
Tommaso Orsini 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lokomotiv Moscow is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
In brief
SquadWords at Lokomotiv Moscow training over how hard people work
45 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lokomotiv Moscow will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The offer from Neftekhimik for Jeffrey Baffoh 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.80 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Tommaso Orsini 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergey Pinyaev 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lokomotiv Moscow will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 36 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.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 18 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lokomotiv Moscow is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Pedro. 3‑1 against Krasnodar, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lokomotiv Moscow will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Lokomotiv Moscow, and it is not being withdrawn.
Sergey Pinyaev 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.
“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 Lokomotiv Moscow hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotiv Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Lokomotiv Moscow will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match1 Nov 2042
Sergey Pinyaev wins it after the whistle should have gone
91 minutes played. Sergey Pinyaev found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Chelyabinsk went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.26 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
171 appearances across 11 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lokomotiv Moscow is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
34 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.
9 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
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.
Player ratings6 Oct 2042
A brace, and Hugo Medina takes the afternoon — 8.15
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Hugo Medina provided it, and the 8.15 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.54 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Lokomotiv Moscow heard it as anything else.
31 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
The offer from Orenburg for David Foster 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.
481 appearances across 13 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiv Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Shilenok 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.
Derby days make names, and Santino Crego made his against Spartak Moscow. 1‑0, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Lokomotiv Moscow support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotiv Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiv Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Lokomotiv Moscow will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Sime Kramaric is living that version at Lokomotiv Moscow, and it tends to show in the first month.
“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 Lokomotiv Moscow, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Domagoj Benko will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiv Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Domagoj Benko 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
“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 Lokomotiv Moscow, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiv Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotiv Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
19 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.
A 6‑0 win over Dinamo St Petersburg, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Daniel Claesson provided it, and the 8.32 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Bakary Konaté will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiv Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lokomotiv Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Lokomotiv Moscow and Dinamo St Petersburg in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
In brief
SquadSergey Pinyaev falls out with a teammate over standards