The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Marcelo Brozović 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vyacheslav Khudoklinov is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kirill Glebov 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 touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
8 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
45 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CSKA Moscow lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.77, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
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.
54 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CSKA Moscow 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 CSKA Moscow can pretend not to have heard.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Marcelo Brozović 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.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
61 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CSKA Moscow lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
0‑1 to Rostov, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Kirill Glebov 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.
“I watch every CSKA Moscow game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Pisa runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Shots: 10. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
4 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Kirill Glebov
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Alerrandro’s exile
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at CSKA Moscow hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Marcelo Brozović 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.
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matheus Reis is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The goal that put Baltika ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when CSKA Moscow equalised, 4 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
10 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.
Al Shabab did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $10.5M for Khalid Al Naqbi, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
“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 CSKA Moscow, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Khalid Al Naqbi from Al Shabab for $10.5M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
181% of the income goes out in wages at CSKA Moscow
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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.79, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Matheus Reis 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.
24 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Moisés 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Tamerlan Musaev was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.62. 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.
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.
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kirill Glebov is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Matheus Alves did not need any: 8.70, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The offer from Dukla Prague for Milan Gajić was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow 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.
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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
It needed Matheus Alves to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Dinamo Makhachkala, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The terracesThe press cannot get enough of Matheus Alves
3Edition
The CSKA Moscow Gazette
17 Aug 2026
From our football correspondentSteady
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Kirill Glebov, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.50
A mark of 8.50 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Ivan Oblyakov 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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Kirill Glebov has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
8 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.
The offer from Akhmat Grozny for Moisés was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
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.
Ivan Oblyakov 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.
8 goals in one match, Daniel Ruiz on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of CSKA Moscow and Akhmat.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matheus Reis wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Marked 9.25 — 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.
611 appearances across 23 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Luciano Gondou wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Kader Bamba has just signed for CSKA Moscow, and for once the answer mattered.
Marked 8.07 — 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.