“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Krasnodar can pretend not to have heard.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Giuliano has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
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 Sergey Petrov is on it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Eldar Guseinov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Krasnodar the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Stepan Mikhaylov to a room that had heard them before.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Zenit.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Krasnodar told Daniil Utkin something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Dmitry Vorobjov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Krasnodar needing him to play as if none of it matters.
4 goals in 10 games at Hermannstadt — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Krasnodar updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Lucas Olaza reports back to Krasnodar with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Marked 8.06 — 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.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Stepan Mikhaylov, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Krasnodar, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
The dugoutMoses Cobnan dropped after a run of poor form
Krasnodar close the window on a squad of their own making
13 in and 24 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Krasnodar can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Krasnodar had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Botafogo, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Krasnodar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. CSKA Moscow have kept their man, and Krasnodar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Add another name to the list: Kolomna have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Eldar Guseinov. The answer from Krasnodar has not changed — yet.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Krasnodar can pretend not to have heard.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.91 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Fakel have kept their man, and Krasnodar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Rodina spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
“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 Krasnodar, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Krasnodar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Krasnodar has been clear about where Vitaly Stezhko stands, which is more than many ever get.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
“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 Krasnodar, and it is not being withdrawn.
6 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.
“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 Krasnodar hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Krasnodar can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Krasnodar know it.
Level with 88 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Krasnodar had all but put away. Dinamo Moscow will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Sergey Petrov has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
7 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Bogdan Abramov 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Zakhar Emelyanov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Level with 89 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Krasnodar had all but put away. Ural will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Krasnodar people have started saying his name in the past tense.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Krasnodar have done the hard part with Spartak Moscow, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Douglas Augusto wants continental football; whether Krasnodar can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Rodina is saying, and nobody at Krasnodar is enjoying the guessing.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Torpedo Moscow will make the call about Ilja Vakhania this week. Krasnodar have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Batxi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Torpedo Moscow have kept their man, and Krasnodar go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Nobody at Krasnodar 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Krasnodar they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Nobody at Krasnodar 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.
4 shut-outs in 9 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Alexandr Koryakin has been having a lot of them.
The language is arriving, the jokes are landing, and there is somebody at the next peg to talk to. None of it appears in a scouting report and all of it shows up on the pitch.
In brief
SquadLucas Olaza is training like a man with a point to make
Alexandr Chernikov 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.
Nobody at Krasnodar 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Batxi signs something — a contract at Krasnodar or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I will play as long as the body lets me and stop the day it does not.” He is 37, with 14 appearances behind him, and the club has to plan for a decision that is not yet made.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Krasnodar will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Valentin Paltsev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Krasnodar the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Nobody at Krasnodar 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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Krasnodar that is a harder question to answer.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Krasnodar is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
13 goals in 30 games at Torpedo Moscow — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Krasnodar updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Artem Bykovskiy 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.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
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 Dmitry Vorobjov is on it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Aris Thessaloniki this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Aris Thessaloniki 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Loren Morón trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Eldar Guseinov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Krasnodar the goodbyes have quietly begun.
13 goals in 29 games at Torpedo Moscow — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Krasnodar updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Krasnodar that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
A call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. Krasnodar would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
4 goals in 22 games at Levadiakos — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Krasnodar updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Two hours a week with a tutor, which is the least glamorous thing at Krasnodar and the one that decides whether a foreign signing is still here in two years.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Aris Thessaloniki have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Aris Thessaloniki this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Loren Morón and Aris Thessaloniki agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Aris Thessaloniki are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
In brief
Looking aheadAris Thessaloniki take on the side everybody is chasing
4 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.
The phone has started ringing about Lovro Majkić again, and this time the name on the line is IF Elfsborg. Aris Thessaloniki are listening politely and promising nothing.
Marked 8.23 — 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Angelos Stafylidis on a 3‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Martin Frýdek had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. NK Celje have kept their man, and Aris Thessaloniki go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Angelos Stafylidis after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Aris Thessaloniki will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
One booking too many, and Noah Sonko Sundberg sits out. Aris Thessaloniki lose him for the sort of avoidable reason that makes a manager's week longer.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Aris Thessaloniki have done the hard part with Krasnodar, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Fredrik Jensen and Aris Thessaloniki agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
A goalkeeper’s error has no defender behind it to tidy it away. He knew before the ball crossed the line, the crowd knew a second later, and there is nothing anybody can say tonight.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Alexandr Chernikov obliged against Baltika. 3‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Krasnodar.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Krasnodar 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 Krasnodar can pretend not to have heard.
Position 1 with 50 on the board, and the queues outside the ticket office are the part of a promotion push that never shows up in a table. The town has decided this one is real.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.12 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Kevin Pina reports back to Krasnodar with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Krasnodar can pretend not to have heard.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.94 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
7.83, 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Eldar Guseinov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Krasnodar the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Krasnodar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Batxi 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.
Position 2, 32 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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 Stepan Mikhaylov left the room before anybody could ask which.
32 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
“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 Krasnodar hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The first defeat in 7 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Dinamo Makhachkala; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
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.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Krasnodar will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 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.
Everybody at Krasnodar saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 38 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Juan Manuel Boselli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alexandr Chernikov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Krasnodar know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Sochi next, and one man in the Krasnodar dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Nobody at Krasnodar 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Krasnodar can pretend not to have heard.
25 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Dmitry Pestryakov did not need any: 8.25, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Krasnodar is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
306 appearances across 14 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Tormena wants continental football; whether Krasnodar can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Diego Costa 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.
Krasnodar asked and Atlanta United FC said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.