Marked for Botirali Ergashev
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match12 Jun 2027
Nobody wins at Neftchi
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Player ratings14 Jun 2027
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.
Market14 Jun 2027
Neftchi say no — this time
The offer from Pakhtakor for Asilbek Jumayev 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.
Match12 Jun 2027
8 unbeaten for Neftchi
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 8 matches without defeat is a foundation Neftchi did not have in the autumn.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Vladimir Jovović dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Player ratings14 Jun 2027
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.27 on the card, and the Neftchi support went home talking about one name.
Squad14 Jun 2027
“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.
Squad14 Jun 2027
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.
Match12 Jun 2027
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Bunyodkor defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings17 May 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.39, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings17 May 2027
Age has not caught Zoran Marušić yet — 8.08
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.08 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match15 May 2027
Nobody wants to play Neftchi right now
3 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 ratings17 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match15 May 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alisher Odilov. 3‑2 against Metallurg, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad17 May 2027
“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 May 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.09, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad17 May 2027
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.
Squad17 May 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Apr 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 17 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match17 Apr 2027
Navbahor left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad19 Apr 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftchi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Loan watch19 Apr 2027
“I watch every Neftchi game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Navbahor runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Botirali Ergashev has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Neftchi 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad25 Jan 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 90 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Nobody at Neftchi 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Neftchi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad16 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Neftchi may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Stipe Perica 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.
Squad16 Nov 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Neftchi lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Abrorbek Ismoilov, and the manager let it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Abrorbek Ismoilov has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Neftchi 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 41. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Aug 2026
The small margins put Neftchi out
Out, 0‑1 to Bunyodkor, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Vladimir Jovović takes the afternoon — 8.35
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Vladimir Jovović provided it, and the 8.35 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Neftchi can pretend not to have heard.
Market24 Aug 2026
Astana come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Neftchi did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladimir Jovović 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Vladimir Jovović. 2‑1 against Mashal, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Botirali Ergashev, and the manager let it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Ratinho is still paying for one afternoon at Neftchi
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market10 Aug 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Neftchi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Abrorbek Ismoilov 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Stipe Perica in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftchi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market10 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The clock runs on Zoran Marušić's contract
24 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Marked 7.17. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Market10 Aug 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Shohruhbek Yoqubjonov has his answer from Neftchi; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Match8 Aug 2026
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Obod defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.