The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Zenit keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
“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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around CSKA Moscow people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Konstantin Nizhegorodov has just signed for CSKA Moscow, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
Squad9 Jul 2029
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Villagra 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 new man at CSKA Moscow has worked with Luciano Gondou before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
In brief
The dugoutPedro has become a man the manager trusts
The offer from Sporting CP for Pedro 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. CSKA Moscow have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The offer went to Rubin this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
CSKA Moscow asked and Rostov 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 footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Maxim Turischev has, at CSKA Moscow, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Nikita Krivtsov 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.
Zenit arrived with $26.8M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. CSKA Moscow have lost him in all but the paperwork.
72 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Igor Diveev is a CSKA Moscow player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Majed Al Suwaidi has gone, the accounts have $26.8M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
CSKA Moscow asked and Krylya Sovetov 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 version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Igor Diveev is living that version at CSKA Moscow, and it tends to show in the first month.
Recruitment departments spend most of their lives being politely ignored. Not this time: 58 per cent confidence on the report, a signature on the contract, and Maksim Samorodov through the door at CSKA Moscow.
CSKA Moscow and Zenit have settled on $6.8M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
$11.4M on the table at Akhmat Grozny. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
CSKA Moscow asked and Akhmat Grozny said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Nikita Krivtsov has his answer from CSKA Moscow; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The new man at CSKA Moscow has worked with Luciano Gondou before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
20 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. CSKA Moscow lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around CSKA Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Facundo Pellistri and CSKA Moscow agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 7 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
The new man at CSKA Moscow has worked with Luciano Gondou before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
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.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. CSKA Moscow had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
The offer from Slavia Prague for Alexandr Sobolev 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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 36 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.
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 new man at CSKA Moscow has worked with Luciano Gondou before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
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 Pedro is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Facundo Pellistri signs something — a contract at CSKA Moscow or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at CSKA Moscow. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rubén Blanco trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
18 graduates, from a department now rated 9 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
In brief
SquadNüraly Älip is the talk of the training ground
The words a physio says slowly. 44 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.
Majed Al Suwaidi 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 new man at CSKA Moscow has worked with Luciano Gondou before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
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 Majed Al Suwaidi is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CSKA Moscow know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
54 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. CSKA Moscow lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Edvinas Gertmonas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around CSKA Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and CSKA Moscow know it.
Majed Al Suwaidi 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 new man at CSKA Moscow has worked with Luciano Gondou before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
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 Facundo Pellistri is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CSKA Moscow know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The new man at CSKA Moscow has worked with Luciano Gondou before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
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 Jindřich Staněk is on it.
5 goals in 23 games at Radnicki Nis — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“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.
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 new man at CSKA Moscow has worked with Luciano Gondou before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Facundo Pellistri signs something — a contract at CSKA Moscow or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Majed Al Suwaidi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
It is 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.
The new man at CSKA Moscow has worked with Luciano Gondou before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
5 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.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CSKA Moscow know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Edvinas Gertmonas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around CSKA Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Beat anybody else and it is three points. Beat them, with his name on it, and it is a year of bragging rights for CSKA Moscow and a story that will outlast his contract.
Majed Al Suwaidi 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 warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Pedro 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 new man at CSKA Moscow has worked with Luciano Gondou before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
“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; CSKA Moscow are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at CSKA Moscow. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rubén Blanco trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
72 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
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.
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.
“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; CSKA Moscow are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The new man at CSKA Moscow has worked with Luciano Gondou before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Alexandr Sobolev is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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 will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Nikita Krivtsov signs something — a contract at CSKA Moscow or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
Majed Al Suwaidi 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.
7 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
The new man at CSKA Moscow has worked with Luciano Gondou before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at CSKA Moscow that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around CSKA Moscow they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
Majed Al Suwaidi 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.
16 goals in 32 games at Fakel — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
25 appearances and 8 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
5 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CSKA Moscow will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at CSKA Moscow can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
15 goals in 31 games at Fakel — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at CSKA Moscow has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
72 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. CSKA Moscow have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 29 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Kirill Danilov had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“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.
Pedro 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.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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.
Position 1 on 72 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 38 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Lokomotiv Moscow paid $5.9M and CSKA Moscow took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Alerrandro has gone, the accounts have $5.9M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now CSKA Moscow have 4 straight wins of it.
Boardroom26 Feb 2029
CSKA Moscow close the window on a squad of their own making
4 in and 3 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.
“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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CSKA Moscow will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” FC Argeș had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
CSKA Moscow asked and Akhmat Grozny 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 fee is $1.3M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Krylya Sovetov drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The offer from Nizhniy Novgorod for Edvinas Gertmonas 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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Martin Kramarič has, at CSKA Moscow, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CSKA Moscow will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.57 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The clubs have shaken hands with Krylya Sovetov; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
CSKA Moscow asked and Akhmat Grozny said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
$4.4M was the most the club would pay and Akhmat Grozny were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
63 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CSKA Moscow will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
CSKA Moscow asked and Zenit said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
CSKA Moscow offered $8.8M; Krasnodar said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“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 know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” KAMAZ had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Luciano Gondou has, at CSKA Moscow, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Zenit have accepted the money. What CSKA Moscow do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 70 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer went to Sochi this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“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 offer went to Rostov this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“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.
Majed Al Suwaidi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CSKA Moscow will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Nikita Krivtsov 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 22 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.
Marked 8.29 — 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.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 87 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Ivan Oblyakov.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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.
55 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
“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 CSKA Moscow know it.
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 CSKA Moscow have had the benefit of 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 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.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Zenit scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Majed Al Suwaidi 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 fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Player ratings25 Dec 2028
Henrique Carmo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.03. 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Timur Tsyganov after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Jindřich Staněk is on it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.49 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Pedro provided it, and the 8.34 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Henrique Carmo 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.
3 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Dinamo Makhachkala spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
13 goals in 19 games at Fakel — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
In brief
Looking aheadThe big one: Krasnodar come into view
Player ratingsNikita Krivtsov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
22 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at CSKA Moscow can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
11 goals in 18 games at Fakel — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
After 10 games, CSKA Moscow finally taste it again
The first defeat in 10 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Akhmat; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
“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.
Majed Al Suwaidi 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.
“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; CSKA Moscow are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
21 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.
10 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.
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.
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 Jindřich Staněk 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 CSKA Moscow, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Edvinas Gertmonas has written the date down.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at CSKA Moscow that is a harder question to answer.
8 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.
42 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
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.
10 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Match11 Nov 2028
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for CSKA Moscow. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Henrique Carmo and CSKA Moscow agree another 5 years.
Marked 8.30 — 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.
Derby days make names, and Tamerlan Musaev made his against Dinamo Moscow. 1‑0, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
19 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.
7 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.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and CSKA Moscow supporters have already started telling it.
“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; CSKA Moscow are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Majed Al Suwaidi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 11 actions, 7.18, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Squad6 Nov 2028
Henrique Carmo is the division's best young player this month
At 22 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. CSKA Moscow will try very hard not to make too much of it.
6 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
Majed Al Suwaidi 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Nikita Krivtsov. 2‑1 against Krylya Sovetov, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match28 Oct 2028
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for CSKA Moscow. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Dinamo Moscow on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Majed Al Suwaidi. 4‑3 against Lokomotiv Moscow, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about CSKA Moscow and Lokomotiv Moscow in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Ivan Oblyakov 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.
At 22 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.
“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; CSKA Moscow are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jindřich Staněk signs something — a contract at CSKA Moscow or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Pedro’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and CSKA Moscow needing him to play as if none of it matters.
5 goals in 11 games at Fakel — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
17 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.95 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
4 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.
16 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Majed Al Suwaidi provided it, and the 8.91 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Nikita Krivtsov scored, was marked 7.80, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Jindřich Staněk and CSKA Moscow agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
7.79, 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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Nikita Krivtsov wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tamerlan Musaev. 3‑1 against Rubin, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“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.
15 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.
21 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
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.
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 bid was some way short and CSKA Moscow did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom11 Sep 2028
Deadline passes with 11 signed and 18 gone
That is the business done at CSKA Moscow 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.
“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.
Nikita Krivtsov 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 ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ivan Oblyakov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Amir Murillo signs something — a contract at CSKA Moscow or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Majed Al Suwaidi reports back to CSKA Moscow with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lokomotiv Moscow have kept their man, and CSKA Moscow go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Rubén Blanco has just signed for CSKA Moscow, and for once the answer mattered.
“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; CSKA Moscow are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about CSKA Moscow and Baltika in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
With 9 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Nikita Krivtsov scored, was marked 7.94, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
The enquiry everybody at CSKA Moscow was hoping would not arrive has arrived. He has never pretended he did not want to go back, and now there is somewhere to go back to.
8 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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. CSKA Moscow have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Nikita Krivtsov. 1‑0 against Krasnodar, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.10. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at CSKA Moscow.
Squad21 Aug 2028
8 new faces, and CSKA Moscow are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout21 Aug 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Timur Tsyganov kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. CSKA Moscow have lost him in all but the paperwork.
7 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.
13 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Nikita Krivtsov 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 want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
Two goals and a mark of 8.91 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
6 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.
Majed Al Suwaidi 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 want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
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.
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.
Ural paid $4.4M and CSKA Moscow took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Nikita Krivtsov wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Nüraly Älip 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 CSKA Moscow can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lokomotiv Moscow have kept their man, and CSKA Moscow go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Player ratings24 Jul 2028
Henrique Carmo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.44
A mark of 8.44 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.
He is going to Zenit, the club has $15.8M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
4 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CSKA Moscow will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about 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 CSKA Moscow can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Torpedo-BelAZ waiting with a shirt. Nobody at CSKA Moscow is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Akhmat Grozny have kept their man, and CSKA Moscow go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Henrique Carmo did not need any: 7.70, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
There is interest, it is real, and it comes from the one direction that makes it a story rather than a transfer. CSKA Moscow supporters have already said what they think.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CSKA Moscow will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
CSKA Moscow offered $14.3M; Akhmat Grozny said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
“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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Akhmat Grozny have kept their man, and CSKA Moscow go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $15.6M — a club that wants Maksim Samorodov enough to be asked twice.
Nikita Krivtsov 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 name of Alexandr Sobolev has come up in conversations CSKA Moscow were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CSKA Moscow will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Fernando Costanza had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
“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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around CSKA Moscow people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zenit have kept their man, and CSKA Moscow go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
$9.2M was the most the club would pay and Rostov were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $19.0M — a club that wants Esequiel Barco enough to be asked twice.
Alexey Miranchuk 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason CSKA Moscow will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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.
Position 2, 68 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zenit have kept their man, and CSKA Moscow go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
CSKA Moscow offered $14.2M; Rostov said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Pedro has just signed for CSKA Moscow, and for once the answer mattered.
The fee is $2.8M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Lokomotiv Moscow drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason CSKA Moscow will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
$32.3M on the table at Lokomotiv Moscow. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
CSKA Moscow asked and Lokomotiv 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.
CSKA Moscow offered $9.5M; Zenit said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $801.0K — a club that wants Ilja Lantratov enough to be asked twice.
Majed Al Suwaidi 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 bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. CSKA Moscow will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Lokomotiva Zagreb waiting with a shirt. Nobody at CSKA Moscow is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Sparta Prague for Alexey Miranchuk 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.
Nikita Krivtsov 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 training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 9 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 68 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
Two goals and a mark of 9.16 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nikita Krivtsov provided it, and the 8.40 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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. CSKA Moscow will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.32, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Ivan Oblyakov 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 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“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 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.
Nikita Krivtsov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CSKA Moscow know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and CSKA Moscow have no good answer.
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 Sergey Pinyaev has written the date down.
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.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CSKA Moscow, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at CSKA Moscow would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at CSKA Moscow that is a harder question to answer.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Moisés has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
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.
“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 CSKA Moscow know 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Majed Al Suwaidi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
3 appearances and 0 goals is not a season away, it is a year lost. He is back at CSKA Moscow no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their fault.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at CSKA Moscow would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Position 2, 68 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“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.
A season average of 7.32 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. CSKA Moscow know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at CSKA Moscow can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Ivan Oblyakov 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 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” CSKA Moscow have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Nikita Krivtsov 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.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CSKA Moscow know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sergey Pinyaev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and CSKA Moscow supporters have already started telling it.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CSKA Moscow, and both men came out saying it was fine.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at CSKA Moscow would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Ivan Oblyakov has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
“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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
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.
14 goals in 29 games at Arsenal Tula — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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.
“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 was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at CSKA Moscow has been clear about where Dmitry Barinov stands, which is more than many ever get.
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 Amir Murillo is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CSKA Moscow know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The phone has started ringing about Tomáš Chorý again, and this time the name on the line is Rosenborg. CSKA Moscow are listening politely and promising nothing.
$2.5M was the most the club would pay and Zenit were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The 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.
Tomáš Chorý 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.
17 games, 14 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at CSKA Moscow now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
With 5 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
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.
“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; CSKA Moscow are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Artem Shumanskiy and CSKA Moscow agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Ivan Oblyakov 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 CSKA Moscow, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“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.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.32, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Danil Krugovoy and CSKA Moscow agree another 4 years.
Dinamo Moscow will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Rubén Blanco has pre-agreed a move to CSKA Moscow, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
“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.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.38, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
The terraces28 Feb 2028
CSKA Moscow are 2 in the table and the town has noticed
68 points, a place near the top and a ground that has begun to enjoy itself. Nobody will say the word out loud, which is the surest indication that everybody is thinking it.
The offer went to Zenit this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
7.90, 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.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 2 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“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 right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Neman waiting with a shirt. Nobody at CSKA Moscow is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Henrique Carmo did not need any: 7.60, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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.
The chase for Vitaly Stezhko ended with $470.0K changing hands and Krasnodar out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Vitaly Stezhko has just signed for CSKA Moscow, and for once the answer mattered.
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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around CSKA Moscow people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The clubs have shaken hands with Krasnodar; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Lokomotiv Moscow wanted more than $3.5M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
CSKA Moscow have gone to Zenit with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
“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.
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 7.97 for the rest of it.
The phone has started ringing about Dmitry Barinov again, and this time the name on the line is BATE. CSKA Moscow are listening politely and promising nothing.
CSKA Moscow offered $66.8M; LOSC Lille said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. CSKA Moscow have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Position 2, 66 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“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.
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.
22 goals in 26 games at Sochi — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
A season average of 7.32 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. CSKA Moscow know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
$62.6M on the table at LOSC Lille. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of 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 CSKA Moscow, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around CSKA Moscow people have started saying his name in the past tense.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alexey Miranchuk provided it, and the 9.12 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Akhmat Grozny have kept their man, and CSKA Moscow go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
In brief
Player ratingsHenrique Carmo, 21, steals the show — 8.04
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Henrique Carmo did not need any: 8.08, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
4 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.
19 goals in 24 games at Sochi — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The name of Dmitry Barinov has come up in conversations CSKA Moscow were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Fernando Costanza wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Nikita Krivtsov at his very best
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Alexey Miranchuk had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alexey Miranchuk provided it, and the 9.22 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
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.
A 7‑1 win over Spartak Kostroma, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around CSKA Moscow people have started saying his name in the past tense.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Sergey Pinyaev provided it, and the 8.34 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two goals and a mark of 8.29 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Marked 8.23 at 19, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
The terraces10 Jan 2028
CSKA Moscow are 2 in the table and the town has noticed
54 points, a place near the top and a ground that has begun to enjoy itself. Nobody will say the word out loud, which is the surest indication that everybody is thinking it.
1 for Rodrigo Villagra, marked 7.94, 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 offer from Navbahor for Dmitry Barinov 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.
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 CSKA Moscow have had the benefit of it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The phone has started ringing about Alexey Miranchuk again, and this time the name on the line is Dinamo Zagreb. CSKA Moscow are listening politely and promising nothing.
“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.
17 goals in 21 games at Sochi — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Rodrigo Villagra and CSKA Moscow agree another 4 years.
“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.
4 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 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 7.99 for the rest of it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at CSKA Moscow can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
15 goals in 20 games at Sochi — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Zenit next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Dinamo Makhachkala will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. CSKA Moscow were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alexey Miranchuk provided it, and the 9.55 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Henrique Carmo did not need any: 7.67, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
The dugout20 Dec 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting João Victor'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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Henrique Carmo did not need any: 8.00, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
A season average of 7.22 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. CSKA Moscow know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Majed Al Suwaidi 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.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about CSKA Moscow and Rodina in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Nikita Krivtsov scored, was marked 7.97, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
“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.
Ivan Oblyakov 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.
14 goals in 17 games at Sochi — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Marked 8.42 — 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.
13 goals in 16 games at Sochi — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
13 goals in 15 games at HNK Rijeka — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at CSKA Moscow updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Tamerlan Musaev provided it, and the 9.05 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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.
Nikita Krivtsov 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 is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether CSKA Moscow can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Alexey Miranchuk at his very best
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether CSKA Moscow can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.19, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Nikita Krivtsov 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Henrique Carmo and CSKA Moscow agree another 5 years.
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 Nikita Krivtsov is on it.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at CSKA Moscow would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
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.
A goalkeeper's career is counted in the games nobody scored in, and Jindřich Staněk now has 25 of them across 251 appearances. Nothing about that number was luck.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 5 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Tomáš Chorý’s exile
“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; CSKA Moscow are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes CSKA Moscow will be judged on one thing only.
Something was said to Ivan Oblyakov and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Alexandr Sobolev 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.
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 Facundo Pellistri is on 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Tamerlan Musaev provided it, and the 8.78 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
Henrique Carmo, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.87
A mark of 7.87 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.
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.
200 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.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.18, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
Ivan Oblyakov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.19. 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.
Position 2, 29 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Successful dribbles: 21. 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.
“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 want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Sergey Pinyaev wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Artem Shumanskiy and CSKA Moscow agree another 4 years.
Spartak Moscow next, which means a week that starts on Monday. Everything else on this page will be forgotten by Saturday; this fixture will not be forgotten for a year.
Nobody at CSKA Moscow 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.
Squad11 Oct 2027
The division's best last weekend was a CSKA Moscow man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Alexey Miranchuk was the best thing in any of them.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. CSKA Moscow know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
SquadA CSKA Moscow teenager takes the young player award
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alexey Miranchuk provided it, and the 9.39 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nikita Krivtsov provided it, and the 8.50 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two goals and a mark of 8.46 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Henrique Carmo did not need any: 8.35, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
4 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
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.
3 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.
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.
Marked 7.17 on 12 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether CSKA Moscow can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Rubin made CSKA Moscow work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dmitry Barinov 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.
Marked 7.73. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout27 Sep 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Timur Tsyganov kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
22 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alexey Miranchuk provided it, and the 8.95 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, and a scan that said otherwise. He goes back to Krasnodar; CSKA Moscow go back to the market; and both will insist there is no story here.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Nikita Krivtsov scored, was marked 7.96, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around CSKA Moscow people have started saying his name in the past tense.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nikita Krivtsov provided it, and the 8.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The offer went to Zenit this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
CSKA Moscow and Krasnodar have settled on $710.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Boardroom13 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 14 signed and 26 gone
That is the business done at CSKA Moscow 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Nikita Krivtsov wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $7.6M — a club that wants Artem Karpukas enough to be asked twice.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. CSKA Moscow will try again when the window opens; Zenit may not be selling by then.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around CSKA Moscow people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The chase for Fernando Costanza ended with $5.9M changing hands and Krylya Sovetov out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
The offer went to Zenit this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Fernando Costanza has, at CSKA Moscow, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
Amir Murillo 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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
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.
The young player of the month award goes to a 20-year-old at CSKA Moscow who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Sharjah did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $18.1M for Majed Al Suwaidi, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. CSKA Moscow have done the hard part with Krylya Sovetov, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around CSKA Moscow people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Novi Pazar had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Majed Al Suwaidi has, at CSKA Moscow, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Akhmat Grozny have kept their man, and CSKA Moscow go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
CSKA Moscow have gone to Sharjah with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
“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.
The offer went to Boca Juniors this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
CSKA Moscow asked and Sparta Prague 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 offer from Napredak 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at CSKA Moscow heard it as anything else.
A season average of 7.03 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. CSKA Moscow know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Add another name to the list: Krasnodar have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ramiro Di Luciano. The answer from CSKA Moscow has not changed — yet.
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.
Spezia have accepted the money. What CSKA Moscow do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
CSKA Moscow asked and Feyenoord 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 listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Artem Shumanskiy had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
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.
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 name of Milan Gajić has come up in conversations CSKA Moscow were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
In brief
SquadMatheus Reis falls out with a teammate over standards