Marked for Mikhail Levashov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Dec 2026
Aleksej Golijanin damages knee ligaments — 14 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
Match7 Dec 2026
Sokol sink to position 16
15 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Marko Soldo 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“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.
Match5 Dec 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Tempers go at Sokol
Artem Bykov 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
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 Sokol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match15 Aug 2026
A bad afternoon for Sokol against Ural
1‑2 to Ural, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Allon Butaev pulls a muscle — 15 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Sokol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Churikov 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Vladimir Kovačević and Sokol agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Sokol
Vladimir Kovačević 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Ivan Churikov 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market3 Aug 2026
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.