The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Gabala is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Jaime Sierra 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.
Walfrido 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 club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
“I watch every Gabala game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Shimal runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“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 The request is on a desk at Gabala, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Gabala close the window on a squad of their own making
1 in and 0 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.
The name of Şahin Şahniyarov has come up in conversations Gabala were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Jaime Sierra 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Gabala people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Two goals and a mark of 8.37 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Uerdi Mara scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Turan Tovuz, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Jaime Sierra 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.
Gabala asked and Neftchi said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jaime Sierra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Eduardo Kunde 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.
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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Maksim Bayramov could afford to be generous.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Zira in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Isaac 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 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.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Gabala training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paulinho Souza 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Bruno Silva has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
In brief
The dugoutAdriel Ba Loua dropped after a run of poor form
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Şahin Şahniyarov is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Three points for Gabala, 3‑2 the final word against Zira in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Jaime Sierra 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gabala this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 22 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 7.05, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Jaime Sierra 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Gabala training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Turan Manafov 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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
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.
“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 Sep 2026
Words at Gabala training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paulinho Souza 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 dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Maksim Bayramov left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Gabala will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Gabala, another week without a signature from Eldar Kuliev.
“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 Gabala, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. América Mineiro have kept their man, and Gabala go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A loan enquiry to Athletico Paranaense: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Gabala are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Uerdi Mara has just signed for Gabala, and for once the answer mattered.
The offer from Shafa for Prince Owusu 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gabala this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Gabala can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Add another name to the list: Jabrayil have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Nuğay Rəşidov. The answer from Gabala has not changed — yet.