The mood at Metallurg has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Metallurg can pretend not to have heard.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.11 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metallurg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Words at Metallurg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Masaki Okino 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.
Marked 8.24 — 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.
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.
19 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.
97 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Metallurg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Davron Anvarov 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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at Metallurg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Armin Bošnjak 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Metallurg know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
134 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Metallurg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Metallurg, and it is not being withdrawn.
4 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metallurg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Armin Bošnjak 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.
19 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Navbahor kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Metallurg will be asked about the last half hour all week.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.94 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The shirt still fits. Leonnel Ekodo Awono is back at Metallurg, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Beaten 2‑4, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at Metallurg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Armin Bošnjak 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metallurg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Cohen Stander 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.
Pakhtakor left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Metallurg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Azimjon Ahmedov 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.
“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 Metallurg, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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; Metallurg are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Cohen Stander 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.
Marked 9.55 — 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Metallurg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Azimjon Ahmedov 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 13 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
In brief
The terracesThe press have found their man in Michael Ohana
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metallurg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Metallurg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Armin Bošnjak 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Metallurg, another week without a signature from Azimjon Ahmedov.
Squad12 Apr 2027
5 new faces, and Metallurg are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
12 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metallurg 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.
11 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 terraces8 Mar 2027
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 5 of the 23 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.50, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Azimjon Ahmedov 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.
5 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Armin Bošnjak 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Akmal Hasanov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The words a physio says slowly. 110 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Metallurg will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
10 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.
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.
Position 16 and 3 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The terraces28 Sep 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 6 of the 23 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Masaki Okino 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.
Kokand 1912 left with the points after a 1‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Davron Anvarov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.95. 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.
125 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Metallurg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
5 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metallurg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Metallurg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sanjar Shoahmedov 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.