A brace, and Jacques Siwe takes the afternoon — 8.54
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jacques Siwe provided it, and the 8.54 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igor Vujačić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jacques Siwe. 2‑1 against Krylya Sovetov, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Konstantin Nizhegorodov 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.
“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 dugout21 Dec 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.” Nikolay Kryukov, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
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.
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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Igor Vujačić 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Ruslan Bezrukov 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“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 Rubin know it.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Igor Vujačić 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.
Yegor Teslenko 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.
Something was said to Yegor Teslenko and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
A 2‑1 win over Spartak Kostroma, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Daniil Motorin provided it, and the 8.12 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Bogdan Jočić 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Igor Vujačić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
At 22 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.
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Rubin lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A brace, and Jacques Siwe takes the afternoon — 8.55
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jacques Siwe provided it, and the 8.55 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleksandar Jukić 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tiago Azulão, and the manager let it.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Evgeny Staver
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Nikolay Kryukov could afford to be generous.
In brief
The dugoutRuslan Bezrukov is still being punished for one mistake
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Rubin lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Tiago Azulão
31 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Rubin lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Anderson Arroyo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Rubin can tell you which week it ends in.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Denil Maldonado, and the manager let it.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Nikolay Kryukov was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Rubin dressing room was either.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Dinamo Moscow defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Rubin lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
0‑3 against Lokomotiv Moscow, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anderson Arroyo 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.
At 38, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Nikolay Kryukov after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Rubin, another week without a signature from Aleksandar Jukić.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Rubin, and both men came out saying it was fine.
46 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Rubin lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Yegor Teslenko 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.
Everybody at Rubin saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 38 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Rubin, and 2 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Rubin, another week without a signature from Ugochukwu Iwu.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Edvinas Gertmonas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Veldin Hodža is on it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.03 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rubin this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Igor Vujačić 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Daniil Motorin 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.
8.36. 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.
6 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.
“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 Rubin know it.
Bogdan Jočić 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. Igor Vujačić 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dardan Shabanhaxhaj trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
That is the business done at Rubin until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igor Vujačić 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.
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, 6.92, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Rubin, another week without a signature from Edvinas Gertmonas.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“I watch every Rubin game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sochi runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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.
Igor Vujačić 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.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Rubin than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Orenburg next, and one man in the Rubin dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“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 Rubin, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Igor Vujačić 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.
Rubin asked and Dinamo Makhachkala said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
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.” Nikolay Kryukov chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Igor Vujačić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Yegor Teslenko 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Orenburg have kept their man, and Rubin go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.