Successful dribbles: 40. 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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Rotor people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rotor can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rotor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Feb 2027
At 21, Ilhan Fakili is already the best thing here
An average of 7.07 in a first team he is several years too young for. Rotor have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Maxim Zhuravlev 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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Rotor have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Two goals and a mark of 8.60 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Irakly Manelov 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Said Aliev. 3‑2 against Spartak Kostroma, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sergey Makarov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Rotor have had the benefit of it.
Irakly Manelov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sergey Makarov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Irakly Manelov'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.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
In brief
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for David Davidyan
Looking aheadRotor take on the side everybody is chasing
Successful dribbles: 44. 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Rotor have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.85 for the rest of it.
Irakly Manelov 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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Ilhan Fakili is the division's best young player this month
At 20 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Rotor will try very hard not to make too much of it.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Alexandr Korotkov has come out of that comparison in the side, and Rotor have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Nikita Plotnikov scored, was marked 7.76, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Irakly Manelov 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.
At 20 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Rotor told Ilhan Fakili something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
13 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.
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Ilhan Fakili, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.09
A mark of 8.09 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rotor 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 Alexandr Troshechkin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 20 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.
Irakly Manelov 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Vladlen Terekhov 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. Alexei Suvorov 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.
Something was said to Nikita Chagrov and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Arseny Spiridonov was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Rotor dressing room was either.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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 deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 18 arrived, 6 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Ilhan Fakili 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Nikolai Kudryavtsev 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Valentin Fadeev 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Luca Ferretti has just signed for Rotor, and for once the answer mattered.
Ilhan Fakili 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandr Troshechkin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Rotor will not keep him by pretending otherwise.