At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.86 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Rrok Toma 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.
Squad12 Nov 2040
Bulat Gatin 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.
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
Nobody at Chelyabinsk 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Chelyabinsk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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 The request is on a desk at Chelyabinsk, and it is not being withdrawn.
7.76, 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.
Rrok Toma 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.
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 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.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 87th, and Shinnik spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ralph Stein will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Chelyabinsk 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 Chelyabinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lucas Girotti. 3‑2 against Shinnik, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad21 Nov 2039
Words at Chelyabinsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bulat Gatin 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.
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.
In brief
BoardroomThe numbers do not look good at Chelyabinsk
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.
Rrok Toma 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 Oct 2039
Bulat Gatin 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.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Chelyabinsk will not try tonight.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tiago Malfatti signs something — a contract at Chelyabinsk or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Steven Wright obliged against Chaika. 3‑2 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Chelyabinsk.
Two goals and a mark of 8.24 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Chelyabinsk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chelyabinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Chelyabinsk did not have in the autumn.
Squad10 Oct 2039
Words at Chelyabinsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bulat Gatin 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.
At 21 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alexandr Novosad. 1‑0 against Akron, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Chelyabinsk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chelyabinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Stanislav Zinchenko is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Artem Vasilyev has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Rodion Zhuravlev 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Nikolay Lavrov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Chelyabinsk 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 Chelyabinsk can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Chelyabinsk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Rrok Toma 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 Chelyabinsk training over how hard people work
Boardroom89% of the income goes out in wages at Chelyabinsk
40 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Chelyabinsk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Chelyabinsk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chelyabinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
96 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Chelyabinsk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chelyabinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Jan 2039
Words at Chelyabinsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bulat Gatin 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.