The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Alania people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Dinamo St Petersburg had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alania is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The phone has started ringing about Sarmat Ogoev again, and this time the name on the line is Avangard. Alania are listening politely and promising nothing.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Pobeda have kept their man, and Alania go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Arsen Kanteev 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and David Tepsikoev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alania they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Alania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Matyushenko 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.
Makhach Abdulkhamidov 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.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Alania know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Alania, and both men came out saying it was fine.
What was a back-page link has become a chant, and the chant is not friendly. Alania would rather it were settled quietly, and it has stopped being quiet.
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Alania they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Batraz Gurtsiev 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Alania this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Alania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Batraz Gurtsiev 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.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lev Kryukov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Alania the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Alania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Matyushenko 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sarmat Ogoev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Alan Khugaev
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Batraz Gurtsiev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Zaurbek Ramonov 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alania is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Batraz Gurtsiev 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 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Alania, and both men came out saying it was fine.
7.76, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alania is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Alan Bagaev 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Batraz Gurtsiev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 23 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alan Khugaev. 1‑0 against Leningradets, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alania is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Matyushenko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 16. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Tikhon Yevseyev left the room before anybody could ask which.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Alania is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Batraz Gurtsiev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Batraz Gurtsiev’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Alania.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Batraz Gurtsiev was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.18. 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Tikhon Yevseyev on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Makhach Abdulkhamidov has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
37 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Alania lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Alania people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 Alania, and it is not being withdrawn.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The bid was some way short and Alania did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Alania training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Batraz Gurtsiev 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 needed David Tepsikoev to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Dinamo Kirov, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.