The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Bunyodkor people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Zira is saying, and nobody at Bunyodkor is enjoying the guessing.
Najmiddin Normurodov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Words at Bunyodkor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Muhammadyusuf Sobirov 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Esteghlal have kept their man, and Bunyodkor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
“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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Bunyodkor, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Bunyodkor people have started saying his name in the past tense.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Dmitry Pletnev provided it, and the 8.11 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Bunyodkor and Andijon, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Federico Botti has left for Sogdiana in a $140.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Bunyodkor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Azizbek To'lqinbekov 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 words a physio says slowly. 26 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.
The offer from Zob Ahan for Muhammadyusuf Sobirov was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Bunyodkor have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Federico Botti had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“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 Bunyodkor, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Fakel keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
“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 Bunyodkor know 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sochi have kept their man, and Bunyodkor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bunyodkor lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.71 for the rest of it.
Morteza Pouraliganji 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.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Bunyodkor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sardor Abdunabiyev 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.
Boardroom17 May 2027
Nobody left the Bunyodkor dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout17 May 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 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Jasur Fayzullaev to a room that had heard them before.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bunyodkor can pretend not to have heard.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Bunyodkor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Azizbek To'lqinbekov 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.
Boburbek Yo'ldoshev 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.
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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Jasur Fayzullaev could afford to be generous.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Dmitry Pletnev provided it, and the 8.05 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Morteza Pouraliganji 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Muhammadyusuf Sobirov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
The terraces5 Apr 2027
Bunyodkor are taken apart by Mashal — and the town wants answers
It finished 0-3. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.92 for the rest of it.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Boburbek Yo'ldoshev 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.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bunyodkor 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 Bunyodkor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 33 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Bunyodkor will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Muhammadyusuf Sobirov is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Muhammadyusuf Sobirov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“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 Bunyodkor, and it is not being withdrawn.
A mark of 7.70 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Najmiddin Normurodov 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.
At 21 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.