Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Nizhniy Novgorod will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Daniil Lesovoy 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.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Sven Karič 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 Nizhniy Novgorod can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fakel they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Clayton Sampaio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Fakel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Evgeny Markov is on it.
The dugout15 May 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Alexandr Reiz's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kirill Simonov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Fakel the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Clayton Sampaio 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.
Bence Batik 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.
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.
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 Darko Todorović is on it.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Fakel has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fakel have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kirill Simonov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Fakel the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
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 Darko Todorović is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Abdula Bagamaev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Fakel will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Position 9 on 46 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.85 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Darko Todorović 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.
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.
11 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Fakel have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fakel they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
The dugout20 Mar 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Gennady Chernyshov, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“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 Nizhniy Novgorod, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nizhniy Novgorod this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sven Karič was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Soltmurad Bakaev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Andrey Okladnikov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Nizhniy Novgorod needing him to play as if none of it matters.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Vladislav Sarveli signs something — a contract at Nizhniy Novgorod or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutArtem Timofeev has become a man the manager trusts
The offer from Slavia Mozyr for Nikita Yermakov 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.
Tenton Yenne and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Sven Karič 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.
Four weeks in which nobody in the division did his job better. The award goes on a shelf and the player goes back into the side, which is the order Nizhniy Novgorod prefer.
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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Nizhniy Novgorod has been clear about where Vince Gino Dekker stands, which is more than many ever get.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Alexey Konstantinov has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Tenton Yenne 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 tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Nizhniy Novgorod can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
9 goals in 21 games at Kolomna — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Nizhniy Novgorod updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Soltmurad Bakaev is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
Nobody at Nizhniy Novgorod 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Nizhniy Novgorod know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Nizhniy Novgorod is running low.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nizhniy Novgorod this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Vlad Larionov 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Timur Kalinichev is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Oleg Ryazantsev 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. Evgeny Antonov 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 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 bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gleb Popolitov is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikita Yermakov 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; Nizhniy Novgorod are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Artem Sidorenko’s exile
BoardroomNobody left the Nizhniy Novgorod dressing room in a hurry
Boardroom97% of the income goes out in wages at Nizhniy Novgorod
37 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Nizhniy Novgorod lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nizhniy Novgorod can pretend not to have heard.
Two goals and a mark of 8.73 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Nikita Medvedev 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Nizhniy Novgorod and CSKA Moscow in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.