Marked for Sergey Volkov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad4 Jan 2027
Vladimir Iljin damages knee ligaments — 45 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 45 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match4 Jan 2027
Sochi are in real trouble now
Position 15, 19 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at Sochi
Sergey Volkov 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.
Match2 Jan 2027
0‑2 to Spartak Moscow, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad4 Jan 2027
The decline has begun for Ruslan Magal
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Sochi is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ruslan Magal, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Vladimir Iljin
102 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sochi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Alexandr Soldatenkov 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Sochi
Sergey Volkov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Vyacheslav Litvinov, and the manager let it.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Kirill Zaika gets picked when it counts
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 Zaika is on it.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Marcelo Alves asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Baqtiiar Zainutdinov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Sochi needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
Home comforts ahead for Sochi
Dinamo Moscow, position 6, come to town on Saturday. Nobody will call it a big game and nobody at the club will be treating it as anything else.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Questions about Artem Korneev on the training pitch
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
At 22 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words exchanged at Sochi
Baqtiiar Zainutdinov 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.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
A promise honoured at Sochi
Something was said to Baqtiiar Zainutdinov and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Squad12 Oct 2026
8 new faces, and Sochi are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Kirill Zaika gets picked when it counts
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 Zaika is on it.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Sergey Volkov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Sochi needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Alexandr Degtev asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market12 Oct 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Zakhar Fedorov signs something — a contract at Sochi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Squad12 Oct 2026
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Sochi the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market28 Sep 2026
Marcelo Alves hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sochi can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
At 34 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.29, and nobody on the pitch better.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“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 Sochi know it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Sochi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandr Soldatenkov 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.
Squad28 Sep 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 Sochi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets28 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. OFI have kept their man, and Sochi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match26 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Vladimir Iljin. 1‑0 against Akron, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Marcelo Alves
“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.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Vadim Plyushkin, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match22 Aug 2026
Chastening afternoon for Sochi
A 0‑3 beating by Rostov was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Crvena Zvezda keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Match22 Aug 2026
No end in sight to Sochi's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Sochi has to find a result from somewhere.
Market24 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: ND Gorica have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Zakhar Fedorov. The answer from Sochi has not changed — yet.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Alexandr Soldatenkov 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Sochi
Sergey Volkov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alexandr Metsiev, and the manager let it.
In brief
-
Boardroom
Doors closed at Sochi
-
The dugout
The view from the dugout
-
Transfer targets
A loan move for Alexandr Kutitskiy is in the works
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match8 Aug 2026
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. François Kamano will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Sochi escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Zakhar Fedorov at 21 — 8.32
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Zakhar Fedorov did not need any: 8.32, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alexandr Soldatenkov and Sochi agree another 3 years.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. KAMAZ have kept their man, and Sochi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad10 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 Sochi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
At 21 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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Alexey Glushakov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market10 Aug 2026
One of our own: Fedot Smirnov joins the Sochi first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fedot Smirnov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.