Marked for Benjamin Teidi
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match15 Feb 2027
First, on 27 points. The table is a fact and a fact is allowed to be enjoyed, which is as far as anybody at the club is prepared to go in public.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words exchanged at Navbahor
Diyor Xolmatov 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 dugout15 Feb 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
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 Husain Norchayev is on it.
Market15 Feb 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Navbahor know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Benjamin Teidi has seen what the next man earns
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Navbahor that is a harder question to answer.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market18 Jan 2027
$1.6M from Metallurg for Abbos G'ulomov. Money is money, but the dressing room has lost the man it looked to.
Match18 Jan 2027
The view from the top for Navbahor
27 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
The terraces18 Jan 2027
Navbahor sell a favourite for $1.6M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Abbos G'ulomov was one of the reasons people came, and $1.6M does not replace that by itself.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Husain Norchayev 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.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rodina have kept their man, and Navbahor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout18 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Benjamin Teidi, and the manager let it.
The dugout18 Jan 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match23 Nov 2026
27 points and nobody above them. The word is not being said around the ground yet, and it is being thought in every seat.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Navbahor may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Husain Norchayev 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.
The dugout23 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.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
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.
Market23 Nov 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Navbahor know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 Oct 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 Navbahor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages swallow 187% of the Navbahor income
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
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 dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Vanja Ilić
“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 dugout5 Oct 2026
Benjamin Teidi knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Benjamin Teidi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market5 Oct 2026
The Joel Kojo talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Navbahor know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Navbahor. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Squad5 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 Navbahor the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Squad5 Oct 2026
6.67 across the ninety minutes, and a place in the division’s best eleven for it. Nobody who saw the match will argue.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match26 Sep 2026
Nobody wants to play Navbahor right now
12 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.
Match28 Sep 2026
First, on 27 points. The table is a fact and a fact is allowed to be enjoyed, which is as far as anybody at the club is prepared to go in public.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Husain Norchayev 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
A 1‑0 win over Pakhtakor, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Marked 7.89 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Navbahor had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Dostonbek Ganiev could afford to be generous.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Nobody at Navbahor 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 15 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match19 Sep 2026
Navbahor cannot stop winning
11 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Navbahor win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 95th minute. Bukhara will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Match19 Sep 2026
Another one collected away from home
7 on the bounce on the road for Navbahor. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Market21 Sep 2026
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Shukron Yo'ldoshev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Navbahor the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Diyor Xolmatov 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
It finished 2‑1, and it was Alex Fernandes’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Navbahor.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Defences have started doubling up on Joel Kojo
10 goals and a season average of 7.22 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Squad21 Sep 2026
100 times in these colours, in all weathers and under four or five different managers. That kind of service is quietly disappearing from the game.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 7.90. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad24 Aug 2026
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Navbahor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match22 Aug 2026
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Joel Kojo obliged against Lokomotiv. 4‑2 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Navbahor.
Match19 Aug 2026
Navbahor through in the cup
A 3‑1 win over Lokomotiv, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Joel Kojo scores twice — 8.98
Two goals and a mark of 8.98 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.84 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match22 Aug 2026
Navbahor cannot stop winning
6 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.
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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Navbahor have gone to Mashal with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.