Pedro Pereira 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Genclerbirligi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Franco Tongya 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Genclerbirligi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Genclerbirligi know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Genclerbirligi has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
His past walked in ahead of him. Players who have been where he has been get a hearing in a dressing room before they have earned one, and he has it for as long as his form does.
Nobody at Genclerbirligi 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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Jonathan Lindseth has written the date down.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Genclerbirligi have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
7.44, 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.
The offer from Erzurumspor for Abdullah Şahindere 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.
Adama Traoré 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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Franco Tongya falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
1‑2 to Goztepe, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout13 Sep 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 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Ahmet Tekdemir to a room that had heard them before.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
In brief
The dugoutErhan Erentürk dropped after a run of poor form
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Nart waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Spartak Kostroma is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Spartak Kostroma they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 Spartak Kostroma know it.
Amur Kalmykov 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 had been thinking. Vladislav Saus 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.
Spartak Kostroma asked and Baltika said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Spartak Kostroma has been clear about where Nikolay Tarasov stands, which is more than many ever get.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Spartak Kostroma they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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; Spartak Kostroma are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladislav Saus 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. Baltika have kept their man, and Spartak Kostroma go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Spartak Kostroma people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer from Tobol for Ilja Rubtsov 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 name of Amur Kalmykov has come up in conversations Spartak Kostroma were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Kostroma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vladislav Saus was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Spartak Kostroma asked and Baltika said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Spartak Kostroma will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
In brief
Squad6 new faces, and Spartak Kostroma are still learning each other
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Spartak Kostroma they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Amur Kalmykov 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 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Faruk Gogić has his answer from Spartak Kostroma; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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 Spartak Kostroma, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Denis Terekhov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartak Kostroma the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nader Mohammadi 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.
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 Kirill Chursin is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Spartak Kostroma, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Spartak Kostroma. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Words at Orenburg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jordhy Thompson 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.
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 Danila Khotulev is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Orenburg know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nobody at Orenburg 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Spartak Kostroma is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alexandr Osipov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Denis Bokov has moved up it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Stanislav Poroikov and Orenburg agree another 4 years.
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.
Ilja Rubtsov 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.
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 press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Alexandre Jesus’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The terraces26 Apr 2027
Supporters make their feelings known about Damián Puebla
The speculation has reached the stands, and the stands have answered. Orenburg would like this settled before it becomes the only thing anybody asks about.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Orenburg. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Danila Khotulev has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
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.
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.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
In brief
SquadEmil Tsenov is training like a man with a point to make
“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; Orenburg are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
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 year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Orenburg would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gedeon Guzina signs something — a contract at Orenburg or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Neftekhimik waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Orenburg is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Dinamo St Petersburg for Irakli Kvekveskiri 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jordhy Thompson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Mikhail Dorokhov after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Kolomna waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Spartak Kostroma is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Spartak Kostroma can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Spartak Kostroma they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Nikolay Tarasov scored, was marked 7.13, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“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; Spartak Kostroma are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Orel waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Spartak Kostroma is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Spartak Kostroma can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Spartak Kostroma asked and Sibir said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Rostislav Plyushkin after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Elion Jashari 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Chaika waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Spartak Kostroma is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Chaika is saying, and nobody at Spartak Kostroma is enjoying the guessing.
The phone has started ringing about Amur Kalmykov again, and this time the name on the line is Pakhtakor. Spartak Kostroma are listening politely and promising nothing.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Ilja Rubtsov has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Spartak Kostroma can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Amur Kalmykov 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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 Spartak Kostroma 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout11 Jan 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 Rostislav Plyushkin to a room that had heard them before.
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.
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 Alexandr Chupaev is on it.
Amur Kalmykov 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.
At 19 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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Alexandr Tarasov has come out of that comparison in the side, and Spartak Kostroma have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Rostislav Plyushkin could afford to be generous.
Nobody at Spartak Kostroma 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.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Denis Terekhov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartak Kostroma the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Kostroma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The dugout21 Dec 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 0‑4 defeat, delivered by Rostislav Plyushkin to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Nader Mohammadi's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
“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 Spartak Kostroma know it.
Amur Kalmykov 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 had been thinking. Đorđe Pantelić 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, 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 Nikita Demchenko 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.
Nobody at Spartak Kostroma 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.
Ilja Rubtsov wins it after the whistle should have gone
93 minutes played. Ilja Rubtsov found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Chernomorets went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Amur Kalmykov 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 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 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Rostislav Plyushkin on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nikolay Tarasov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Yegor Ushakov 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 Spartak Kostroma 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 35, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“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 is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Spartak Kostroma told Denis Bokov something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Nobody at Spartak Kostroma 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.
Amur Kalmykov 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.
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.
Something was said to Yegor Ushakov and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Spartak Kostroma are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Nobody at Spartak Kostroma 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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Spartak Kostroma people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Spartak Kostroma close the window on a squad of their own making
17 in and 3 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.
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. Rubin have kept their man, and Spartak Kostroma go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Add another name to the list: Vitebsk have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ilja Rubtsov. The answer from Spartak Kostroma has not changed — yet.
It needed Amur Kalmykov to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Neftekhimik, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Rostislav Plyushkin was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Spartak Kostroma dressing room was either.
In brief
Player ratingsYegor Ushakov beats them one at a time
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Spartak Kostroma can pretend not to have heard.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ruslan Cherviakov did not need any: 7.84, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Daniil Zorin. 2‑1 against KAMAZ, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Daniil Zorin 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.
Chelyabinsk will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Spartak Kostroma were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alexandr Chupaev provided it, and the 8.94 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two goals and a mark of 8.58 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Successful dribbles: 26. 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.
7.81, 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Kostroma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.