71 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Arsenal Tula lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Alexandr Khubulov 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Goran Corluka is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad19 Jul 2038
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dilan Godoy 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.
Boardroom19 Jul 2038
6 academy players handed senior numbers at Arsenal Tula
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mikhail Grigoryev 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Egor Yevseyev 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Oleg Putin 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Arsenal Tula 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 The request is on a desk at Arsenal Tula, and it is not being withdrawn.
104 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Arsenal Tula lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Arsenal Tula can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Arsenal Tula they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad18 May 2037
Dilan Godoy 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arsenal Tula this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Arsenal Tula know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Arsenal Tula this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Mar 2037
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandr Khubulov 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Matías Fernández trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Arsenal Tula 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.
“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 Arsenal Tula, 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 Arsenal Tula this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
9 goals and a season average of 7.46 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad26 Jan 2037
Words at Arsenal Tula training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Basil Tuma 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.
A 2‑1 win over Pari Nizhniy Novgorod, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The mood at Arsenal Tula has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Arsenal Tula they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Arsenal Tula can pretend not to have heard.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Arsenal Tula know it.
Squad22 Dec 2036
Dilan Godoy 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.