Marked for Alexandr Dolgov
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 40. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match19 Aug 2026
Amkar through in the cup
A 0‑0 win over Pobeda, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Vladislav Dolzhenko: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Amkar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Islamzhan Nasyrov 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Amkar
Evgeny Tyukalov 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Three points for Amkar, 1‑0 the final word against Ural 2 in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad24 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 ratings24 Aug 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.71 on the card, and the Amkar support went home talking about one name.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match15 Aug 2026
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Evgeny Tyukalov, 34, rolls back the years — 8.05
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.05 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Tomasz Dusik commits to Amkar for another 3 years.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Islamzhan Nasyrov 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.
Squad17 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 Amkar this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Denis Mikhailov 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.
Match15 Aug 2026
Amkar settle it inside twenty minutes
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Nosta spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.31, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.21 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 49. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Kirill Popov, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.63
A mark of 7.63 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Islamzhan Nasyrov and Amkar agree another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Amkar
Kirill Korolkov 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Amkar training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Islamzhan Nasyrov 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 terraces3 Aug 2026
Amkar supporters have found a favourite in Kirill Popov
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Kirill Popov 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.
Match1 Aug 2026
Three points for Amkar, 2‑0 the final word against Dinamo Barnaul in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Amkar, another week without a signature from Islamzhan Nasyrov.
Market3 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Kirill Korolkov’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.