A brace, and Freddy Vargas takes the afternoon — 8.68
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Freddy Vargas provided it, and the 8.68 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
6 goals in one match, Freddy Vargas on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Neftchi and Kapaz.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Imad Faraj 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftchi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.12 — 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.
AZAL left with the points after a 2‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Ľubomír Tupta 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftchi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The goal that put AZAL ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Neftchi equalised, 2 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
“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.
Squad30 Oct 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Klismahn'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.
In brief
The terracesEverybody has an opinion about Jonas Lössl
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftchi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“I watch every Neftchi game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Gabala runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
At 19 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.
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Imad Faraj 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftchi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 14 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Neftchi can pretend not to have heard.
7 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Lautaro Porres is living that version at Neftchi, and it tends to show in the first month.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Julio Sinisterra is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Neftchi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Pedro Ataíde 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 want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Neftchi heard it as anything else.
In brief
SquadWords at Neftchi training over how hard people work
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftchi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Qarabag will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Joni Montiel has pre-agreed a move to Neftchi, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Neftchi pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Oscar Jansson 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.
Pedro Ataíde 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 want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Neftchi heard it as anything else.
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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftchi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ifeanyi Mathew 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.
18 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.
Igor Ribeiro 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Jonas Lössl is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Oscar Jansson 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 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.
Igor Ribeiro 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Pedro Ataíde 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 ratings25 Oct 2027
Pedro Ataíde was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.62. 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.
Nobody at Neftchi 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftchi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Neftchi hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ifeanyi Mathew 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.
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.
14 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Neftchi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Pedro Ataíde 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 at Neftchi 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ifeanyi Mathew 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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Gabala spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Marked 8.17 — 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Neftchi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Neftchi, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftchi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
At 22 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.
Player ratings23 Aug 2027
Klismahn was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.62. 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Neftchi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Qarabag go through and Neftchi go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The terraces24 May 2027
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 34 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Neftchi will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
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.