Marked for Rizvan Umarov
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer from Metta/LU for Vladislav Shepelev 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Dmitry Kuroshev delivers — 7.38
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Dmitry Kuroshev scored, was marked 7.38, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Rizvan Umarov 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Nikolay Rybikov 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
A 2‑0 win over Strogino, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.31 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
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.” Grigory Shevchenko kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Pavel Gorbachev
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Ilja Kubyshkin dropped after a run of poor form
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 43. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Aug 2026
Ryazan ended it 0‑1. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.96, and nobody on the pitch better.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Rizvan Umarov 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rodina have kept their man, and Dinamo St Petersburg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleksandr Masalov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Omar Popov 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Marked 8.02 — 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 55. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market17 Aug 2026
Terms done: Lev Mamaev is going
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Nosta waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Dinamo St Petersburg is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Dmitry Kuroshev delivers — 7.56
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Dmitry Kuroshev scored, was marked 7.56, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Market17 Aug 2026
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $29.0K has been paid because Denis Nikonorov is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo St Petersburg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market17 Aug 2026
Irkutsk pay $46.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Barnaul have kept their man, and Dinamo St Petersburg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Dinamo St Petersburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oleksandr Masalov 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 terraces17 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Dmitry Kuroshev 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
Sevastopol come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Dinamo St Petersburg did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Rizvan Umarov 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Dinamo St Petersburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolay Rybikov 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Danil Tokarev 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Matvey Samsonov 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Nikolai Popov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Match8 Aug 2026
Dinamo Bryansk left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Ilja Kubyshkin
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad10 Aug 2026
8 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.
In brief
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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Player ratings
Alexey Baev was unplayable
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Player ratings
Pavel Kireenko could have had three
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer from Legion for Artem Meshalkin 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Pavel Kireenko and Dinamo St Petersburg agree another 2 years.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
$25.0K on the table at KDV Tomsk. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Rizvan Umarov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom3 Aug 2026
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Yaroslav Terechev has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Dinamo St Petersburg have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Oleksandr Masalov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Nikita Khlusov has come up in conversations Dinamo St Petersburg were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Match1 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over SKA Khabarovsk 2, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.