Marked for Nikolay Boyarkin
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match29 Aug 2026
Nobody wants to play Salyut right now
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Sergey Gaiduk, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.94
A mark of 7.94 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market31 Aug 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Salyut, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match29 Aug 2026
Rotor 2 made Salyut work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Sergey Gaiduk 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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Salyut keep winning on the road
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Nicolás Soria 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Yegor Yelesin has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Salyut 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match19 Aug 2026
Salyut through in the cup
A 4‑1 win over KDV Tomsk, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Sergey Gaiduk at 21 — 8.22
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sergey Gaiduk did not need any: 8.22, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Salyut cannot stop winning
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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Kvant made Salyut work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Salyut training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikita Ponomarev 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 terraces24 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Nikolay Boyarkin at his very best
Marked 8.53. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Salyut.
Match22 Aug 2026
Kvant blown away early
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Kvant tried to reorganise, Salyut did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.07, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Sergey Gaiduk at 21 — 7.69
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sergey Gaiduk did not need any: 7.69, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
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 7.63 for the rest of it.
Match15 Aug 2026
6 goals as Salyut and Ryazan go for it
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Salyut and Ryazan, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Match15 Aug 2026
It finished 4‑2, and it was Alexandr Konev’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Salyut.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Sergey Gaiduk 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
The manager makes an example of Artem Tsygulev
“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 ratings17 Aug 2026
Nikolay Boyarkin was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.49. 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Salyut have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Sergey Gaiduk at 21 — 8.04
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sergey Gaiduk did not need any: 8.04, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market3 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nikita Ponomarev commits to Salyut for another 3 years.
Market3 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Druzhba have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Yury Kudrevaty. The answer from Salyut has not changed — yet.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Salyut training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikita Ponomarev 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.
Match1 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alexandr Konev. 2‑1 against Metallurg, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The terraces3 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.