It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akron 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Akron can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
A brace, and Artem Dzyuba takes the afternoon — 8.49
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Artem Dzyuba provided it, and the 8.49 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Roberto Fernández 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 2‑1 win over Krylya Sovetov, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Akron told Alexandr Vasyutin something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akron this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Akron can pretend not to have heard.
Artem Dzyuba 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Artem Dzyuba had Akron level again within 2 minutes, and Rostov never got to play with a lead at all.
“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 Akron 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 Akron this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Amkar go through and Akron 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.
Artem Dzyuba 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khetag Khosonov 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akron this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.06 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
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.
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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
24 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Artem Dzyuba 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.
Three points for Akron, 1‑0 the final word against Sochi in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A muscle injury sidelines Nazar Makeev for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Akron will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akron 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Artem Dzyuba'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.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 6 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Artem Dzyuba 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.
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.
5 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.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Akron can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akron this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ruslan Yunusov has just signed for Akron, and for once the answer mattered.
21 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Agdon 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.
0‑4 to Baltika, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Artem Dzyuba 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khetag Khosonov 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akron this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Agdon 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.
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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
He is going to Rostov, the club has $1.5M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Akron this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Artem Dzyuba 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. Roberto Fernández 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.