The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sabah is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sabah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Lepinjica was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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; Sabah are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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 Aaron Malouda is on it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sabah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Lepinjica 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.
“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; Sabah are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Every long career reaches the week the last one is thought about. He would like it to be where he started, and Sabah know now that the thought has arrived.
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 dugout9 Apr 2029
The manager has not finished forgetting Aleksey İsayev's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sabah lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sabah they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Position 3, 37 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sabah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Lepinjica was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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; Sabah are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at Sabah 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.
34 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sabah lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sabah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Ernesto Marqeshi has, at Sabah, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Amin Seydiyev 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.
Tino Krešić is 19, and Sabah have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
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.
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.
41 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sabah lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sabah can pretend not to have heard.
Rəhman Daşdəmirov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Lepinjica 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sabah, another week without a signature from Stas Pokatilov.
4 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.
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.
55 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sabah lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sabah is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sabah have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Aaron Malouda 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.
Squad19 Feb 2029
Amin Seydiyev 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.
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 Aaron Malouda is on it.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Sabah have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Sabah close the window on a squad of their own making
2 in and 1 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sabah, another week without a signature from Aaron Malouda.
Nobody at Sabah 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sabah they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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 7.77 for the rest of it.
Zinédine Ould Khaled 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mate Pavlović has just signed for Sabah, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Zagatala waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Sabah is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Sabah had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Qarabag, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
7 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sabah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivan Lepinjica 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Qarabag have kept their man, and Sabah go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
$4.8M settles it between the clubs for Musa Qurbanlı
Qarabag have accepted the money. What Sabah do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
The phone has started ringing about Jesse Sekidika again, and this time the name on the line is Mingachevir. Sabah are listening politely and promising nothing.
A season average of 7.15 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Sabah know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
“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 Sabah know it.
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.
Joy-Lance Mickels 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.
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 Rəhman Daşdəmirov is on it.
1‑2 against Monaco. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sabah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Qarabag next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Amin Seydiyev 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 was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
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 Ivan Lepinjica is on it.
1 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.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.15, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Zinédine Ould Khaled 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.
6 goals in one match, Alejandro Garay on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Sabah and Turan Tovuz.
Rəhman Daşdəmirov 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.
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.
Turan Tovuz next, and one man in the Sabah dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sabah know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Position 4 on 22 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aleksey İsayev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
0‑1 away to the standard of Sint-Truiden. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Bahlul Abdullayev after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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 Rəhman Daşdəmirov is on it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sabah, another week without a signature from Joy-Lance Mickels.
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.
1‑3 against Sint-Truiden. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Position 3, 19 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.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.00, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Joy-Lance Mickels 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.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Alejandro Garay’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Sabah.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Amin Seydiyev 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.
Marked 6.86 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Rəhman Daşdəmirov 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.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Amin Seydiyev 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.
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 Rəhman Daşdəmirov is on it.
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Alejandro Garay was the best thing in any of them.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Rüstəm Əhmədzadə’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Sabah needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Rüstəm Əhmədzadə may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Sabah. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
0‑3. There is a level at which football is played every single week by clubs that have been doing it for fifty years, and an evening like this is what it feels like to arrive there without having done it.
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings9 Oct 2028
Alejandro Garay, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 9.06
A mark of 9.06 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alejandro Garay. 4‑3 against Zira, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Sabah and Zira, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Amin Seydiyev 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.
8.18. 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.
Joy-Lance Mickels 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.
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.
Gabala next, and one man in the Sabah dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Sabah spent a month trying to move him and nobody rang back. He trains with a squad that has told him where he stands, and both sides start counting down to the next one.
A side in position 12 visits next. The result will not make anybody’s season and it could quietly break the shape of one, which is why the manager has been watching the video since Sunday.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
Deadline passes with 15 signed and 6 gone
That is the business done at Sabah 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Amin Seydiyev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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; Sabah are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Bahlul Abdullayev after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“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 Sabah, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Sabah can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sabah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rəhman Daşdəmirov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
8.21. 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.
Squad21 Aug 2028
7 new faces, and Sabah 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.
The dugout21 Aug 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Rüstəm Əhmədzadə's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sabah can pretend not to have heard.
Aaron Malouda 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amin Seydiyev 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Joy-Lance Mickels is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
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 Ivan Lepinjica signs something — a contract at Sabah or anywhere else — this column belongs to 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 Sabah, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Joy-Lance Mickels 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.
Sabah asked and Red Bull Salzburg said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“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; Sabah are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sabah, another week without a signature from Joy-Lance Mickels.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ivan Lepinjica signs something — a contract at Sabah or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sabah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rəhman Daşdəmirov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Rəhman Daşdəmirov is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Xəyal Əliyev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Sabah would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Position 2, 42 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sabah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Xəyal Əliyev 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.
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 Rəhman Daşdəmirov is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sabah, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sabah have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Zinédine Ould Khaled 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 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sabah, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 language is arriving, the jokes are landing, and there is somebody at the next peg to talk to. None of it appears in a scouting report and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Araz-Nakhchivan go through and Sabah go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Xəyal Əliyev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sabah the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Zinédine Ould Khaled 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rəhman Daşdəmirov 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 most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Sabah will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Nobody at Sabah 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.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Xəyal Əliyev has agreed terms with Neftchi for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Zinédine Ould Khaled 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 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.
Turan Tovuz will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. David Tavares has pre-agreed a move to Sabah, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Something was said to Rüstəm Əhmədzadə and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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 Joy-Lance Mickels is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sabah, and both men came out saying it was fine.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sabah lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sabah can pretend not to have heard.
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 Sabah have had the benefit of it.
Add another name to the list: Neftchi have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Abdullah Xaybullayev. The answer from Sabah has not changed — yet.
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.
Xəyal Əliyev 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.
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sabah lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
3‑0, and Samir Haribou took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Sabah tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Player ratings27 Dec 2027
A brace, and Samir Haribou takes the afternoon — 9.12
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Samir Haribou provided it, and the 9.12 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sabah can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rəhman Daşdəmirov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 80 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Xəyal Əliyev 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 Sabah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sabah, another week without a signature from Xəyal Əliyev.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Qarabag.
Qarabag next, and one man in the Sabah dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
103 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sabah lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Zinédine Ould Khaled 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rəhman Daşdəmirov 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.
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.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sabah, and both men came out saying it was fine.
110 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sabah lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Zinédine Ould Khaled 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 Ivan Lepinjica was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Sabah can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
The dugout18 Oct 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.” Bahlul Abdullayev chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
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 Joy-Lance Mickels is on it.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Shamakhi defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Xəyal Əliyev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
117 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sabah lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Sabah is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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; Sabah are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sabah this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sabah, another week without a signature from Rüstəm Əhmədzadə.
Shamakhi next, and one man in the Sabah dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Sabah know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
125 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sabah lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Aaron Malouda did not need any: 8.39, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rəhman Daşdəmirov 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.
140 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sabah lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Aaron Malouda is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ivan Lepinjica was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Joy-Lance Mickels 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.
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. 11 actions, 7.01, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Stas Pokatilov's mistake
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sabah have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Sabah people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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 Sabah, and it is not being withdrawn.
Zinédine Ould Khaled 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 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.
“I watch every Sabah game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sumgayit runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
With 4 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
In brief
Squad5 new faces, and Sabah are still learning each other
17 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sabah lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Sabah have gone to Araz-Nakhchivan 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.
Zinédine Ould Khaled 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.
$69.0K was the most the club would pay and Araz-Nakhchivan 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 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.
Sabah asked and Borussia Mönchengladbach said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
7 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Sabah know which stage they are at.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Sabah told Amin Seydiyev something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“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 Sumgayit, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 18 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.
Sumgayit asked and Pyunik 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 Masaki Murata was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Sumgayit have made the call to Ararat. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad28 Jun 2027
5 new faces, and Sumgayit 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.
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.
Sumgayit and Neftchi have settled on $50.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
“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 Sumgayit, and it is not being withdrawn.
Imishli did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $150.0K for Diogo Almeida, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Shafa have kept their man, and Sumgayit go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Masaki Murata was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Sumgayit know it.
Nicolas Schulz 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.
Sumgayit asked and Sabail said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is 22, he came through every age group here, and a borrowed player of about the same level starts every week ahead of him. The academy has noticed and so have the parents.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sumgayit, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Zira will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Zira can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“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 Zira know it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zira this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leroy-Jacques Mickels was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutMartins Júnior asks for a word with the manager
The dugoutThe manager's exit leaves Marlon Martins exposed
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sumgayit this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sumgayit, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Position 4 on 38 points, and the places that carry a European ticket are close enough to count. Seasons like this are decided by two results in April, and the club knows which two.