4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Zafarmurod Abdurahmatov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adenis Shala 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 7.19, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
A 1‑1 draw with Mashal leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout3 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Akmal Suyunov chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
2 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
“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 Nasaf know it.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 12 actions, 7.14, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
At 20 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Bobur Abdiholiqov. 2‑0 against Bukhara, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Two goals and a mark of 8.74 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adenis Shala was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad22 Mar 2027
5 new faces, and Nasaf 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Nasaf are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adenis Shala was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nasaf this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Oybek Rustamov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Nasaf needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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 Yashnarbek Berdirahmonov is on it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nasaf can pretend not to have heard.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 3 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Nasaf can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Nasaf asked and Kairat said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Akromjon Komilov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nasaf this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Nasaf 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.
In brief
MarketThe window shut and Behruz Haydarov is still in the building
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Nasaf is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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 Nasaf know it.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Akromjon Komilov 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 words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Nasaf have had the benefit of it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Nasaf have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nasaf this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adenis Shala 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.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Nasaf lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adenis Shala was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Position 3, 18 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Samandar Muratboyev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Nasaf the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Adenis Shala is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Lazar Selenić has written the date down.
42 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Nasaf lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Yusuf Otubanjo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Adenis Shala 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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Abduvohid Ne'matov signs something — a contract at Nasaf or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Nasaf they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
At 20 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Nasaf can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Adenis Shala 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.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Adenis Shala at his very best
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Nasaf can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Bunyodkor spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Adenis Shala 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Akmal Suyunov could afford to be generous.
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
$27.0K was the most the club would pay and Navbahor were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The phone has started ringing about Bahodir Halilov again, and this time the name on the line is Astana. Nasaf are listening politely and promising nothing.
Miloš Savić 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 dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Akmal Suyunov was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Nasaf dressing room was either.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
The offer from Tobol for Sardorbek Bahromov 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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sardorbek Bahromov did not need any: 7.69, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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 7.89 for the rest of it.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Nasaf are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Umarbek Eshmurodov 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.
Pakhtakor will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Hojimat Erkinov has pre-agreed a move to Nasaf, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Nasaf asked and NK Domzale said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.