Marked for Sergey Borodin
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match18 Nov 2026
Dinamo Makhachkala ended it 0‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Match21 Nov 2026
5 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Renato Nhaga and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings23 Nov 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.
The dugout23 Nov 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.
Match21 Nov 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad23 Nov 2026
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
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 Nikolay Glushakov to a room that had heard them before.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
The one goal a footballer does not get to celebrate and does not get to forget either. His name is in the wrong column and nothing about it was meant.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match9 Nov 2026
Position 2 and 26 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Renato Nhaga 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words at Torpedo Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilja Berkovskiy 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.
Match7 Nov 2026
Ural left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Veljko Ilić
“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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
The game went through Mario Ćurić — 6.71
Marked 6.71 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
A promise honoured for Veljko Ilić
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Torpedo Moscow told Veljko Ilić something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nikolay Glushakov after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match17 Oct 2026
4‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad19 Oct 2026
The match ball belongs to Mario Ćurić, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
No sign of nerves from Renato Nhaga at 19 — 7.89
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Renato Nhaga did not need any: 7.89, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Match17 Oct 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Torpedo Moscow have 4 straight wins of it.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Renato Nhaga in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Torpedo Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Torpedo Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergey Borodin 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.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.05, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Torpedo Moscow told Renato Nhaga something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
Renato Nhaga 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 dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Sergey Borodin
“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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 39 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Torpedo Moscow is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“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; Torpedo Moscow are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Torpedo Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kacper Wełniak 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 dugout12 Oct 2026
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.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Alexey Kashtanov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Torpedo Moscow needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kirill Pogrebnyak trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.