Marked for Aleksei Polunin
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market23 Jul 2035
“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.
Squad23 Jul 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ilja Safronov, and the manager let it.
Market23 Jul 2035
Rodion Nesterov is 19, and Rotor 2 have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Market23 Jul 2035
Everyone has stopped pretending: Murom will make the call about Aleksei Polunin this week. Rotor 2 have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
The terraces23 Jul 2035
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Squad23 Jul 2035
The competition arrived without a word said to him about it. Mikhail Bondarenko keeps the shirt for now, at Rotor 2's convenience rather than his own.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market2 Apr 2035
Only the photograph left for Anthony Foster
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Anthony Foster will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Rotor the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad2 Apr 2035
A season average of 7.00 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Rotor know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Squad2 Apr 2035
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Gonzalo Dell Aquila and Rotor agree another 2 years.
Boardroom2 Apr 2035
$1.3M of the owner's money at Rotor
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.
Squad2 Apr 2035
Eduardo 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.
Boardroom2 Apr 2035
No signings allowed at Rotor
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match19 Feb 2035
Rotor are in among the leaders
Position 3 and 51 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market19 Feb 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Rotor is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match17 Feb 2035
8 unbeaten for Rotor
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 8 matches without defeat is a foundation Rotor did not have in the autumn.
Squad19 Feb 2035
He is 21, he is averaging 7.08, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Squad19 Feb 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rotor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market19 Feb 2035
Add another name to the list: Chernomorets have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Anthony Foster. The answer from Rotor has not changed — yet.
Squad19 Feb 2035
Eduardo 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.
Squad19 Feb 2035
The team sheet said everything about Tomislav Dadić
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Tomislav Dadić.
Player ratings19 Feb 2035
Marked 7.49 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Rotor had the best player on the pitch.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market28 Aug 2034
“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 Rotor, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad28 Aug 2034
Andrea Zammit breaks a bone — 27 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings28 Aug 2034
Andres Gomez, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.50
A mark of 8.50 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad28 Aug 2034
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.
Market28 Aug 2034
Ramiro Pedroza has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Rotor they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom28 Aug 2034
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Orazio Zanetti 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.
Squad28 Aug 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rotor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Aug 2034
Words at Rotor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrei Anton 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.
Market28 Aug 2034
Rodina M are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Rotor will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces21 Aug 2034
Anger at Rotor 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.
Squad21 Aug 2034
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Rotor may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market21 Aug 2034
“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.
Squad21 Aug 2034
Andrea Zammit breaks a bone — 34 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 34 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings21 Aug 2034
No sign of nerves from Ivan Pugachev at 20 — 7.70
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ivan Pugachev did not need any: 7.70, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings21 Aug 2034
Defensive actions: 23, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad21 Aug 2034
Tempers go at Rotor
Alexandr Troshechkin 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.
Squad21 Aug 2034
Words at Rotor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eduardo 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 terraces21 Aug 2034
At 20 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.