Veljko Simić and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Bruno Silva 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Gabala are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Adriel Ba Loua trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gabala can pretend not to have heard.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Anatoliy Nuriyev scored, was marked 7.71, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Anatoliy Nuriyev. 1‑0 against Araz-Nakhchivan, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad27 Dec 2027
Words at Gabala training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wanderson 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ramil Şeydayev, and the manager let it.
The dugout27 Dec 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Mahir Ozobic kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gabala this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Dec 2027
Words at Gabala training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bruno Silva 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.
“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 Gabala know it.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Turan Manafov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Səlahət Ağayev
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bruno Silva was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Amir Ebrahimzadeh has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gabala this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout29 Nov 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Mahir Ozobic kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Amir Ebrahimzadeh 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Gabala training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bruno Silva 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Gabala are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Every long career reaches the week the player starts thinking about the last one. He would like it to be at the club that first put him on a pitch, and Gabala now know that too.
Nobody at Gabala 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.
MOIK Baku next, and one man in the Gabala dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gabala this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Karvan made Gabala work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Wanderson 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.
8.15. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Amir Ebrahimzadeh and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Bruno Silva 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Gabala can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 20 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Veljko Simić and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Progreso have kept their man, and Gabala go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Gabala has been clear about where Mark Ojong stands, which is more than many ever get.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Adriel Ba Loua trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Gabala will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 34 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Gabala is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gabala this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Gabala training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wanderson 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Nobody at Gabala 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.
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gabala lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Gabala will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The deal with Shafa is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Gabala offered $640.0K; Mingachevir said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Gabala can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gabala this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Veljko Simić 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Something was said to Mark Ojong and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Gabala training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fərid İsgəndərov 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nicat Əliyev is on it.
7 goals in 15 games at Jabrayil — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Gabala updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mark Ojong trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Rza Cəfərov has written the date down.
Veljko Simić and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Gabala are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Wanderson 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 will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
Nobody at Gabala 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Anatoliy Nuriyev signs something — a contract at Gabala or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gabala, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gabala this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Gabala are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Səlahət Ağayev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nicat Əliyev is on it.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 25 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
6 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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 5 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Gabala until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Gabala had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Londrina, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Mikki van Sas 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 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 Gabala know it.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Wanderson 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.
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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Wanderson has, at Gabala, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Gabala have done the hard part with Sumgayit, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Gabala had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Neftchi, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Jaime Sierra and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Turan Tovuz have kept their man, and Gabala go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Wanderson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gabala can pretend not to have heard.
Peter Kings and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Anatoliy Nuriyev is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Gabala can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
“I watch every Gabala game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Shafa runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Mahir Ozobic after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fərid İsgəndərov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nicat Əliyev is on it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gabala can pretend not to have heard.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Mahir Ozobic chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Fərid İsgəndərov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 33 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Gabala is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Gabala told Ítalo something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Mahir Ozobic chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
In brief
Looking aheadGabala take on the side everybody is chasing
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Gabala have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
10 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Ismahil Akinade has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Turan Tovuz in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Adriel Ba Loua signs something — a contract at Gabala or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
3 goals in 4 games at Jabrayil — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Gabala updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Şahin Şahniyarov has written the date down.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Gabala scored in the 93th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ismahil Akinade. 3‑2 against Araz-Nakhchivan, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 9.50 — 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Gabala can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ítalo has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Ramil Şeydayev had Gabala level again within 3 minutes, and Neftchi never got to play with a lead at all.
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mark Ojong has, at Gabala, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The offer from Shafa for Həbib Hüşənov 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gabala this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Gabala can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The name of Prince Owusu has come up in conversations Gabala were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Gabala, another week without a signature from Veljko Simić.
A loan enquiry to Athletico Paranaense: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.