Marked for Daniel Graham
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Aug 2038
81 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Torpedo Moscow lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match7 Aug 2038
3‑0, and Mateo Lisica took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Torpedo Moscow tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings9 Aug 2038
Two goals and a mark of 9.30 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match7 Aug 2038
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 11 matches without defeat is a foundation Torpedo Moscow did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings9 Aug 2038
Mauro Schönfeld, 35, rolls back the years — 8.85
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.85 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market9 Aug 2038
The offer from Orenburg for Daniel Graham 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.
Squad9 Aug 2038
Ilja Berkovskiy 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.
Match7 Aug 2038
KAMAZ blown away early
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. KAMAZ tried to reorganise, Torpedo Moscow did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Player ratings9 Aug 2038
Marked 8.37 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Aug 2038
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Torpedo Moscow lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings2 Aug 2038
A brace, and Bohdan Kyrykovych takes the afternoon — 8.47
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Bohdan Kyrykovych provided it, and the 8.47 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match31 Jul 2038
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 10 matches without defeat is a foundation Torpedo Moscow did not have in the autumn.
Player ratings2 Aug 2038
Mateo Lisica, 35, rolls back the years — 8.34
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.34 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market2 Aug 2038
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad2 Aug 2038
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Torpedo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match31 Jul 2038
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Torpedo Moscow and Lokomotiv Moscow, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Match31 Jul 2038
Torpedo Moscow are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Market2 Aug 2038
Add another name to the list: Orenburg have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Daniel Graham. The answer from Torpedo Moscow has not changed — yet.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Dec 2037
Ilja Berkovskiy damages knee ligaments — 14 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
Squad28 Dec 2037
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 12 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad28 Dec 2037
A fracture rules Roman Bragin out for 92 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Torpedo Moscow will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings28 Dec 2037
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.47, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad28 Dec 2037
Daniel Graham: 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.” Torpedo Moscow have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match26 Dec 2037
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Bohdan Kyrykovych. 5‑3 against Rostov, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match26 Dec 2037
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Torpedo Moscow and Rostov in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Player ratings28 Dec 2037
Ninety minutes of Simeon Yankov at his very best
Marked 8.87. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Torpedo Moscow.
Player ratings28 Dec 2037
Ninety minutes of Noel Čirjak at his very best
Marked 8.81. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Torpedo Moscow.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Dec 2036
A fracture rules Danil Stepanov out for 33 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Torpedo Moscow will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad15 Dec 2036
A knee injury of the worst kind for Nikita Morozov
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Torpedo Moscow lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad15 Dec 2036
“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.
Squad15 Dec 2036
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Torpedo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings15 Dec 2036
Ninety minutes of Simeon Yankov at his very best
Marked 9.00. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Torpedo Moscow.
Player ratings15 Dec 2036
A performance of 8.50 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Match13 Dec 2036
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Player ratings15 Dec 2036
12 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Market15 Dec 2036
2 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Torpedo Moscow money.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Nov 2036
A fracture rules Danil Stepanov out for 54 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Torpedo Moscow will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad24 Nov 2036
A knee injury of the worst kind for Nikita Morozov
47 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Torpedo Moscow lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad24 Nov 2036
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings24 Nov 2036
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.02, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings24 Nov 2036
Daniel Graham, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.32
A mark of 8.32 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.
Player ratings24 Nov 2036
Age has not caught Wilken Ramírez yet — 8.10
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.10 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings24 Nov 2036
Davide Bettella pops up at the right end — 7.64
7.64, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Squad24 Nov 2036
Ilja Berkovskiy 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.