Marked for Sergey Borodin
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
There were 6 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Daniil Utkin gets it from the manager
“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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Chelyabinsk have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mikhail Volkov. The answer from Torpedo Moscow has not changed — yet.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Alexandr Yushin at his very best
Marked 8.07. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Torpedo Moscow.
Match29 Aug 2026
It needed Alexandr Yushin to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Rotor, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Shots: 5, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Alexey Kashtanov dropped after a run of poor form
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Aug 2026
Mario Ćurić 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 terraces24 Aug 2026
The crowd has taken to Ulvi Babaev
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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mario Ćurić, and the manager let it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.41, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Match22 Aug 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Fakel leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
4 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Ruslan Apekov knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ruslan Apekov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Age has not caught Kirill Gotsuk yet — 7.90
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.90 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Mario Ćurić 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Sergey Borodin commits to Torpedo Moscow for another 3 years.
Match8 Aug 2026
Three points for Torpedo Moscow, 2‑1 the final word against Sokol in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Vladislav Shitov has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad10 Aug 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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Ilja Berkovskiy was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.57. 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.
Match8 Aug 2026
Torpedo Moscow settle it inside twenty minutes
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Sokol spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Marked 8.08 — 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.