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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Avangard pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
Squad14 Apr 2036
Romelu Chadli 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.
Tomás von Hellens 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.
Marked 7.11 on 13 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sebastiano Luperto, and the manager let it.
The dugout7 Apr 2036
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Romelu Chadli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Thulani Mkhize 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.
Squad7 Apr 2036
A place in the month's best eleven for Timur Isayev
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Timur Isayev has come out of that comparison in the side, and Avangard have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
Roman Petrov 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.
Squad31 Mar 2036
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Romelu Chadli 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Eduard Belousov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Avangard needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Avangard know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Yefim Bondarenko is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Avangard. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Roman Petrov 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Eduard Belousov. 1‑0 against Chaika M, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Avangard pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Interim Coach on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.89 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
7.99, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
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.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Legion were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard 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 Romelu Chadli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avangard have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
Tomás von Hellens 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.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑1, 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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
Taysir El Heggach 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. Krasnodar have kept their man, and Avangard go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mate Lisztes will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avangard the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom25 Feb 2036
Avangard close the window on a squad of their own making
0 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.
Denis Fedorenko 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 Mate Lisztes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings18 Feb 2036
Timur Isayev, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.74
A mark of 7.74 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Emmanuel Saidi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avangard the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Tomás von Hellens 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.
Avangard asked and Yenisey said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Timur Isayev had Avangard level again within 3 minutes, and Neftyanik never got to play with a lead at all.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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.
Squad11 Feb 2036
Mate Lisztes 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.
Goalkeepers do not get to make mistakes; they get to make goals. He made one, he knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
The dugout11 Feb 2036
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 0‑1 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
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 Ruslan Babayan is on 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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.03 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“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 Avangard know it.
Roman Petrov 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.
Avangard asked and Krasnodar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avangard is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.20 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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 7.81 for the rest of it.
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.
Lev Tolkachev 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.
Squad28 Jan 2036
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Romelu Chadli 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.
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Avangard lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Emmanuel Saidi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avangard the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Tomás von Hellens 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.
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.
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.
“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 Jan 2036
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
In brief
SquadRomelu Chadli falls out with a teammate over standards
23 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Avangard lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Two goals and a mark of 8.33 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 38 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.55 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
30 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Avangard 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 Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
“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.
Squad7 Jan 2036
Mate Lisztes 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.
Lev Tolkachev 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Avangard, another week without a signature from Roman Petrov.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mate Lisztes will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avangard the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
At 21 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.
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.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avangard they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
In brief
SquadRomelu Chadli falls out with a teammate over standards
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Avangard can tell you which week it ends in.
12 combined actions and 7.16. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Position 10, 25 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Romelu Chadli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Avangard can tell you which week it ends in.
Lev Tolkachev 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.
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Avangard will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Nobody at Avangard 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mate Lisztes will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avangard the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Mate Lisztes has agreed terms with Kuban Holding for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad3 Dec 2035
Romelu Chadli 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Emmanuel Saidi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avangard the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Romelu Chadli 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Romelu Chadli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Avangard will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
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 Spartak Nalchik.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Eduard Belousov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout19 Nov 2035
The manager has not finished forgetting Yefrem Fedoseev'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.
1 for Alexandr Goryachkin, marked 7.79, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Avangard, another week without a signature from Roman Petrov.
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Squad12 Nov 2035
Romelu Chadli 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.
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 did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Avangard will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.77 beside his name.
10 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 11 goals between Avangard and Chaika M, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Roman Petrov 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avangard 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 Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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 Alexandr Goryachkin is on it.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Charles Barnes will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avangard the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
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.
9 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.
A 2‑1 win over Kuban Holding, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Charles Barnes 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Avangard has been clear about where Mate Lisztes stands, which is more than many ever get.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Tomás von Hellens's mistake
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
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 system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Avangard, another week without a signature from Maxim Gavrilov.
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.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
0-3, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Everybody at Avangard saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 35 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.
In brief
BoardroomNobody left the Avangard dressing room in a hurry
1 for Roman Petrov, marked 7.45, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Everybody at Avangard saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 37 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.
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 embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
A brace, and Roman Petrov takes the afternoon — 8.29
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Roman Petrov provided it, and the 8.29 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.84 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Avangard and Neftyanik, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Tomás von Hellens 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.
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, 7.24, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
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.
In brief
The terracesThe away end at Neftyanik goes home happy
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
15 combined actions and 6.82. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Avangard asked and Spartak Tambov 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 have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom10 Sep 2035
Deadline passes with 10 signed and 7 gone
That is the business done at Avangard 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.
Everything agreed with Neftekhimik, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Avangard asked and Spartak Tambov 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 Vyacheslav Khudoklinov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Avangard, another week without a signature from Vyacheslav Khudoklinov.
Nobody at Avangard 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Shota Chikhradze will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avangard the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 11 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
The deal with Spartak Tambov is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Nikita Solomatin 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 Vyacheslav Khudoklinov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.05 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Krasnodar is saying, and nobody at Avangard is enjoying the guessing.
Nikita Solomatin 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.
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.
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.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Yefim Bondarenko did not need any: 7.78, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
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.
He is 19 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.
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.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad13 Aug 2035
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vyacheslav Khudoklinov 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.
Lev Tolkachev 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.
Marked 6.69 on 9 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Shota Chikhradze will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avangard the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Shota Chikhradze has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Tomás von Hellens 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. Amkar have kept their man, and Avangard go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Avangard have done the hard part with Neftekhimik, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Tomás von Hellens 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.
Avangard asked and Volna said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A 2‑1 win over Volna, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad30 Jul 2035
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vyacheslav Khudoklinov 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.
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.85 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
1 for Ivan Nikin, marked 7.91, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
The deal with Amkar is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Day 8 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
Avangard asked and Yenisey said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad23 Jul 2035
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vyacheslav Khudoklinov 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 an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom16 Jul 2035
7 academy players handed senior numbers at Avangard
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Artem Gribov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Zakhar Korotkov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
Nikita Solomatin 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.
Avangard asked and Amkar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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 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 embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Nobody at Avangard 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.
The club is in the hands of administrators, 9 points have gone off the table, and no signing may be made until further notice. Everything this season was about was decided in a room nobody from the ground was sitting in.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Avangard asked and Krasnodar 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 Vyacheslav Khudoklinov 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 Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Avangard, another week without a signature from Daniel Armstrong.
Lev Tolkachev 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad18 Jun 2035
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vyacheslav Khudoklinov 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 did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Avangard will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Tomás von Hellens 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.
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $6.5M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
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 Ruslan Babayan 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 Avangard, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
A year of somebody else signing off every invoice ends this week. The books are smaller, the squad is smaller, and for the first time since it began the club is allowed to plan.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Avangard can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Avangard will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Nikita Solomatin 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 easiest signature of my career.” Sebastiano Luperto and Avangard agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Avangard were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
Nikita Solomatin and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad28 May 2035
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vyacheslav Khudoklinov 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 Avangard 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.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Avangard, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout14 May 2035
The manager has not finished forgetting Arseniy Sokolov'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.
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Avangard could ask drops and the wages Shota Chikhradze can ask rise.
Position 6, 57 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Avangard can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Everybody at Avangard 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.
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 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Lev Tolkachev is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
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.
Nobody at Avangard 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Apr 2035
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vyacheslav Khudoklinov 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 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.
8.56. 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.
Marked 8.33 — 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.25 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
At 37, 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.
He is 23 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.
Marked 8.32 — 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.
Two goals and a mark of 9.02 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.91 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Nikita Solomatin 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 Vyacheslav Khudoklinov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
50 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Charles Barnes did not need any: 7.94, 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 7.96 for the rest of it.
Nikita Solomatin 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.
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.
He is 20 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.
8.02. 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.
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 7.43, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Avangard, another week without a signature from Shota Chikhradze.
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.
Nobody at Avangard 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.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Shota Chikhradze was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Arseniy Sokolov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
0‑4 to Krylya Sovetov 2, 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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.
Lev Tolkachev 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vyacheslav Khudoklinov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
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. 10 actions, 7.02, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
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 Krylya Sovetov 2.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.20 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Tomás von Hellens 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.
Spartak Tambov will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Sulaiman Yusuf has pre-agreed a move to Avangard, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Avangard asked and Krasnodar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Avangard can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard 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.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout5 Mar 2035
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 1‑2 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Savely Kovtun is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Semyon Abramov's mistake
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom26 Feb 2035
Avangard close the window on a squad of their own making
0 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 deal with Druzhba is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard 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 Denis Fedorenko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.38 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ivan Nikin scored, was marked 7.82, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avangard they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Nikita Solomatin 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 2035
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denis Fedorenko 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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
1 for Alexandr Goryachkin, marked 7.50, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Player ratings12 Feb 2035
Up for the corner, and Savely Kovtun delivers — 7.87
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Savely Kovtun scored, was marked 7.87, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Avangard asked and Krasnodar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Savely Kovtun. 2‑1 against PSK Pervorechenskoe, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vyacheslav Khudoklinov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
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.
Lev Tolkachev 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Interim Coach on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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.
At 36, 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.
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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Avangard has been clear about where Lev Tolkachev stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout29 Jan 2035
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ruslan Angutaev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
The dugouta squad player left out for tactical reasons at Avangard
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Avangard is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Tomás von Hellens 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Vyacheslav Khudoklinov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Tomás von Hellens 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.
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 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.
The dugout15 Jan 2035
The manager has not finished forgetting Arseniy Sokolov'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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Avangard would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Nikita Solomatin 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Avangard can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Every long career reaches the week the last one is thought about. He would like it to be where he started, and Avangard know now that the thought has arrived.
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.
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.
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 Ruslan Babayan is on it.
The dugout8 Jan 2035
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Interim Coach was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Avangard dressing room was either.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.38 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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 Avangard have had the benefit of it.
10.00. 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avangard they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Daniel Armstrong 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.
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.96, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Avangard and Sochi 2, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.92 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ivan Nikin scored, was marked 7.84, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad18 Dec 2034
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denis Fedorenko 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.
Lev Tolkachev 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Interim Coach on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.88 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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 7.79 for the rest of it.
Tomás von Hellens 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 Avangard, 3‑1 the final word against Sevastopol in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad11 Dec 2034
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vyacheslav Khudoklinov 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 had gone 5 games. The players did not celebrate like men who had won a match; they celebrated like men who had been let out of something.
Player ratings11 Dec 2034
Ivan Nikin was on a different afternoon to everybody else
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.
Half the programme played, position 15, 20 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
0‑4 to Neftyanik, 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.
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.
Tomás von Hellens 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.
Squad4 Dec 2034
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denis Fedorenko 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 Avangard, another week without a signature from Nikita Solomatin.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Miguel Silva will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Avangard the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avangard have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Avangard has been clear about where Semyon Abramov stands, which is more than many ever get.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Avangard know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Avangard could ask drops and the wages Daniil Kiryagin can ask rise.
Nikita Solomatin 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 Avangard saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 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.
Squad13 Nov 2034
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denis Fedorenko 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.
1‑2 to Torpedo Miass, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout13 Nov 2034
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
Something was said to Savely Kovtun and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Nobody at Avangard 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.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Avangard have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
1‑6 against Krylya Sovetov 2, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
7 goals in one match, Ruslan Angutaev on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Avangard and Krylya Sovetov 2.
“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 Avangard know it.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 34 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Avangard is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avangard they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Miguel Silva has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
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.
Lev Tolkachev 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 a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alexandr Goryachkin provided it, and the 8.31 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.44 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Avangard and Chaika M, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard 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.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Avangard they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Michal Cerny has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Tomás von Hellens 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 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 Alexandr Goryachkin signs something — a contract at Avangard or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
7.72, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Tomás von Hellens 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Vyacheslav Khudoklinov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
7.58, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard 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.
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. Avangard will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Two goals and a mark of 8.41 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Avangard asked and Krasnodar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Avangard, another week without a signature from Nikita Solomatin.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Avangard are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
In brief
Squad5 new faces, and Avangard are still learning each other
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vyacheslav Khudoklinov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Avangard will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Avangard know which stage they are at.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer 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.
In brief
The dugoutIvan Lučić asks for a word with the manager
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Miguel Silva
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 14 arrived, 23 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad11 Sep 2034
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denis Fedorenko 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 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 Avangard know it.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Avangard know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Yakov Kozhemyakin has his answer from Avangard; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ivan Lučić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
7.77, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
“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; Avangard are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Every long career reaches the week the player starts thinking about the last one. He would like it to be at the club that first put him on a pitch, and Avangard now know that too.
Marked 7.06 on 13 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Avangard asked and Dinamo Vologda 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 Denis Fedorenko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Lev Tolkachev 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 manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Denis Fedorenko scored, was marked 7.72, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Alexandr Goryachkin scored, was marked 7.24, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Daniel Armstrong 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 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 2‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Avangard, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Znamya Truda go through and Avangard 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.38 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Daniel Armstrong. 3‑1 against Nart, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad21 Aug 2034
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denis Fedorenko 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 Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Nart spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew 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 Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Ivan Nikin scored, was marked 7.94, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Avangard asked and CSKA Moscow said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
Daniil Kiryagin 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Maxim Ortyashov is in the works
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout7 Aug 2034
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 0‑3 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.11 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Daniel Armstrong 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.
Avangard asked and Amkar 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 Denis Fedorenko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Moscow have kept their man, and Avangard go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Daniil Kiryagin, and the manager let it.
The dugout24 Jul 2034
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 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ivan Lučić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
Two goals and a mark of 8.56 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The dugout17 Jul 2034
a squad player says Avangard went back on their word
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom17 Jul 2034
9 academy players handed senior numbers at Avangard
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Avangard asked and Amkar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Mark Dementyev is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
Daniel Armstrong 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Neftekhimik have kept their man, and Avangard go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Avangard, another week without a signature from Ivan Lučić.
“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; Avangard are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Semyon Abramov's mistake
The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spartak Tambov have kept their man, and Avangard go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
Lev Tolkachev 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 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 Avangard know it.
46 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avangard 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 Avangard can pretend not to have heard.
Daniil Kiryagin 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Avangard, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alexandr Goryachkin signs something — a contract at Avangard or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Miguel Silva has written the date down.
In brief
MarketThe clock does Oleg Kuzmin’s negotiating for him
BoardroomThe Avangard production line keeps running
53 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Avangard lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Avangard have done the hard part with Dinamo Vologda, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Nikita Solomatin 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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ivan Nikin signs something — a contract at Avangard or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A month in which every rumour is possible and most of them are nonsense. The manager has a list, the board has a number, and neither is telling the other the whole of it.
Daniel Armstrong 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.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ivan Lučić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Avangard could ask drops and the wages Ivan Lučić can ask rise.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Avangard has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
The club is in the hands of administrators, 9 points have gone off the table, and no signing may be made until further notice. Everything this season was about was decided in a room nobody from the ground was sitting in.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Avangard will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Avangard have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Daniel Akpan 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 shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
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.
“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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
39 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad29 May 2034
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denis Fedorenko 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Avangard is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Avangard, another week without a signature from Ivan Lučić.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alexandr Goryachkin signs something — a contract at Avangard 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 Avangard, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Avangard this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 May 2034
Words at Avangard training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denis Fedorenko 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 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lev Tolkachev signs something — a contract at Avangard or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Miguel Silva has written the date down.
5 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Avangard could ask drops and the wages Michal Cerny can ask rise.
53 graduates, from a department now rated 4 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
In brief
SquadQuestions about Aleksey Dzyuba on the training pitch