Successful dribbles: 47. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match26 Dec 2026
Daniil Fomin wins it after the whistle should have gone
92 minutes played. Daniil Fomin found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Akron went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.25 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 The request is on a desk at Dinamo Moscow, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Rubens wants continental football; whether Dinamo Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Nicolás Marichal 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.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Ulvi Babaev obliged against Ryazan. 3‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Dinamo Moscow.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Zenit the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Dinamo Moscow will enjoy reviewing.
Two goals and a mark of 8.42 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Maxim Yurin will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dinamo Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Konstantin Tyukavin 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 7.05, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Dinamo Makhachkala scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
5 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Dinamo Moscow, and 4 appearances in 12 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at Dinamo Moscow 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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Ruslan Alyoshin chose the glass-half-full version of 2‑2; the supporters left with the other one.
In brief
Looking aheadDinamo Moscow take on the side everybody is chasing
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Position 4, 28 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Ruslan Alyoshin could afford to be generous.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Konstantin Tyukavin is on it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.48 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
7.92, 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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Dinamo Moscow and Sochi in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Danil Kuznetsov is the division's best young player this month
At 19 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. Dinamo Moscow will try very hard not to make too much of it.
6-0, and a corner of somebody else's ground that made more noise than the rest of it put together. Those coaches leave before dawn and nobody outside them ever mentions it.
Beaten 1‑3 by CSKA Moscow in the one fixture that is never just a fixture. Work, school, the corner shop — there will be no getting away from this one.
“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 Dinamo Moscow, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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.
The dugout26 Oct 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 1‑3 Ruslan Alyoshin left the room before anybody could ask which.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Bitello is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dinamo Moscow know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Dinamo Moscow ran out of time with Al-Hilal. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
“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.
Konstantin Tyukavin 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.
8.34. 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.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Ivan Sergeev at his very best
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Daniil Fomin at his very best
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Krylya Sovetov had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Kolomna waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Dinamo Moscow is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Arthur Gomes was one of the reasons people came, and $6.5M does not replace that by itself.
Nicolás Marichal 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.