2‑1 against Young Boys, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
$17.9M on the table at Krasnodar. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
CSKA Moscow offered $18.1M; Plymouth Argyle said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
CSKA Moscow asked and Zenit said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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 The request is on a desk at CSKA Moscow, and it is not being withdrawn.
$18.1M on the table at Plymouth Argyle. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The offer went to Zenit this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The deal that would have taken Luciano Gondou to PAOK has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to CSKA Moscow with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether CSKA Moscow can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“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.
Beaten 3‑4 by Spartak Moscow in the one fixture that is never just a fixture. Work, school, the corner shop — there will be no getting away from this one.
3 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Ivan Oblyakov will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at CSKA Moscow escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. CSKA Moscow have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The chase for Alexandr Sobolev ended with $6.4M changing hands and Zenit out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Kirill Glebov was one of the reasons people came, and $11.5M does not replace that by itself.
23 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. CSKA Moscow lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CSKA Moscow can pretend not to have heard.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Lokomotiva Zagreb had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The offer from Cukaricki for Milan Gajić 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matheus Reis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. CSKA Moscow will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Ivan Oblyakov 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 not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether CSKA Moscow can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
A point taken on 88 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
5‑1. Nights like this are why clubs spend decades trying to qualify for this competition, and they arrive perhaps twice in that time. Everybody who was in the ground will describe it badly for years.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Henrique Carmo did not need any: 8.34, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
7.93, 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 is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether CSKA Moscow can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about CSKA Moscow and KR in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow 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 Matheus Reis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Vladislav Torop'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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CSKA Moscow know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Henrique Carmo did not need any: 8.09, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Ivan Oblyakov 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.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Marked 8.21 — 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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Dmitry Barinov will call it something else in private.
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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Matvey Lukin 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether CSKA Moscow can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Matheus Reis 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 6.91, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Dinamo Moscow on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Kirill Glebov is the division's best young player this month
At 20 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. CSKA Moscow will try very hard not to make too much of it.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Krylya Sovetov scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Igor Akinfeev 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.
At 21 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.
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 7.98 for the rest of it.
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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Henrique Carmo provided it, and the 8.62 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Danila Kozlov did not need any: 7.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danil Krugovoy 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.
5‑1. Nights like this are why clubs spend decades trying to qualify for this competition, and they arrive perhaps twice in that time. Everybody who was in the ground will describe it badly for years.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Henrique Carmo did not need any: 7.92, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.80 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$14.3M was the most the club would pay and Rayo Vallecano were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The deal with Krylya Sovetov is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” KFUM Oslo had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
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 7.99 for the rest of it.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matheus Alves wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.