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.
The phone has started ringing about Tamerlan Musaev again, and this time the name on the line is River Plate. CSKA Moscow are listening politely and promising nothing.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Kirill Glebov 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.
Boardroom17 Jul 2028
5 academy players handed senior numbers at CSKA Moscow
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 65 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Henrique Carmo is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
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.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $11.0M has been paid because Damián Pizarro is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Al-Ahli did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $10.4M for Feras Al-Brikan, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Sebastián Arce has just signed for CSKA Moscow, and for once the answer mattered.
Kirill Glebov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Damián Pizarro from Udinese for $11.0M, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
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.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Luciano Gondou was one of the reasons people came, and $12.2M does not replace that by itself.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.43, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
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.
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.
“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 20, he is averaging 6.74, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 99 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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.
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.
Squad5 Jun 2028
A season's verdict on Henrique Carmo: the best of his age
CSKA Moscow have a 21-year-old the division has just voted its finest young footballer. The club's next problem is that everybody else now knows it too.
“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.
Kirill Glebov 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.
In brief
MarketDanila Kozlov comes back from a loan that worked
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.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 124 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Kirill Glebov 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. Rodrigo Villagra wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 131 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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 never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
In brief
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting João Victor's mistake
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.
Kirill Glebov 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at CSKA Moscow, and 11 appearances in 45 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.43, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
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.
“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 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.
Kirill Glebov 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.
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.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CSKA Moscow lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Juan Camilo Castillo wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“I did not go to Botosani to sit and watch. I want to come back to CSKA Moscow and fight for my place.” 11 appearances in 41 matches say the rest.
Squad10 Apr 2028
5 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.
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.
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.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.43, 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.
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 never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Luciano Gondou signs something — a contract at CSKA Moscow or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CSKA Moscow lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at CSKA Moscow, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
47 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CSKA Moscow lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 55 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.
“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.
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.
Squad13 Mar 2028
7 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.
“I watch every CSKA Moscow game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Botosani runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The words a physio says slowly. 64 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.
A season average of 7.43 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 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.
“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.
72 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CSKA Moscow lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 92th minute. Orenburg will replay every second of the added time for a week.
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
Henrique Carmo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.58
A mark of 8.58 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.
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 deal that would have taken Artem Shumanskiy to Akhmat Grozny has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to CSKA Moscow with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The words a physio says slowly. 82 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $8.3M has been paid because Maxim Borisko is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Kairat did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $5.0M for Temirlan Anarbekov, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Maxim Borisko is living that version at CSKA Moscow, and it tends to show in the first month.
The chase for Maxim Kainov ended with $3.4M changing hands and Sochi out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
90 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CSKA Moscow lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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.
The name of Maxim Mukhin has come up in conversations CSKA Moscow were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
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.
99 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CSKA Moscow lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. CSKA Moscow have paid $5.7M for Pavel Meleshin, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $3.5M has been paid because Bogdan Ovsyannikov is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Bogdan Ovsyannikov is living that version at CSKA Moscow, and it tends to show in the first month.
A season average of 7.43 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.
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 terraces7 Feb 2028
CSKA Moscow spend $5.7M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $5.7M for Pavel Meleshin, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Henrique Carmo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.86
A mark of 8.86 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.
13 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Kirill Glebov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
A 2‑1 win over Krylya Sovetov, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Henrique Carmo did not need any: 8.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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 offer from Rudar Velenje for Maxim Mukhin was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The 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.
Derby days make names, and Jamalutdin Abdulkadyrov made his against Spartak Moscow. 1‑0, bragging rights secured, and one half of town will be tired of hearing about him by Tuesday.
12 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The CSKA Moscow support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
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.
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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
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.
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 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.
11 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.
Marked 9.24 — 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.
Henrique Carmo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 9.19
A mark of 9.19 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.
“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.
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Rodrigo Villagra and CSKA Moscow agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Ivan Oblyakov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
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 offer from Lanús for Tamerlan Musaev 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.
Player ratings20 Dec 2027
Henrique Carmo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.89
A mark of 7.89 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matheus Alves wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Henrique Carmo 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 will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
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 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.
“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 21, he is averaging 7.24, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Kirill Glebov 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.
6 goals in one match, Tamerlan Musaev on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of CSKA Moscow and Zenit.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings13 Dec 2027
Kirill Glebov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.81. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I 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.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Nils de Mol has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Marked 9.15 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Matheus Alves 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.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
In brief
SquadThe manager has not finished forgetting Ivan Oblyakov's mistake
Successful dribbles: 30. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings29 Nov 2027
Henrique Carmo, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.20
A mark of 8.20 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.
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.
Ivan Oblyakov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Kirill Glebov has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Successful dribbles: 32. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match17 Nov 2027
Artem Serikov wins it after the whistle should have gone
110 minutes played. Artem Serikov found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Dinamo St Petersburg went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Two goals and a mark of 8.40 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Artem Shumanskiy. 2‑1 against Orenburg, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Artem Shumanskiy 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
In brief
SquadWords at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 7.95 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Artem Shumanskiy had CSKA Moscow level again within 3 minutes, and Sochi never got to play with a lead at all.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Henrique Carmo is the division's best young player this month
At 21 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.
Defensive actions: 34, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Henrique Carmo, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.51
A mark of 8.51 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.
“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.
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.
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.
Henrique Carmo, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.32
A mark of 8.32 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-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.
Marked 8.13 — 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.
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 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.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Lokomotiv Moscow will want this one forgotten quickly: 5‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. CSKA Moscow were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Two goals and a mark of 9.19 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 89th, and Ryazan spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
25 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matheus Alves wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
23 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Luciano Gondou at his very best
“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.
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.
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.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
Matheus Alves was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.74. 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.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Henrique Carmo is the division's best young player this month
At 20 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.
Henrique Carmo, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 9.32
A mark of 9.32 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jamalutdin Abdulkadyrov 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.
Shots: 12. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Henrique Carmo did not need any: 8.82, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Henrique Carmo is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Matvey Kislyak and CSKA Moscow agree another 5 years.
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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Henrique Carmo had CSKA Moscow level again within 4 minutes, and Spartak Kostroma never got to play with a lead at all.
Tamerlan Musaev had done his part in building a 3-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Rostov were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Adrián Balboa 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 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.
Kirill Glebov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 26 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Marked 8.38 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Maxim Vityugov and CSKA Moscow agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Kirill Glebov is the division's best young player this month
At 21 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.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Artem Dryakhlov is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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 offer from Volga for Danila Kozlov 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.
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.
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 hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kirill Glebov did not need any: 8.35, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matheus Alves wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Kirill Glebov has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
8 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.
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.
10 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Alexandr Filin 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 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at CSKA Moscow, another week without a signature from Adrián Balboa.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Henrique Carmo, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.91
A mark of 8.91 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.
Orenburg paid $2.2M 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.
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 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 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.
Henrique Carmo, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.74
A mark of 8.74 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.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-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.
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
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 phone has started ringing about Milan Gajić again, and this time the name on the line is Slavia Sofia. CSKA Moscow are listening politely and promising nothing.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Maxim Sidelnikov commits to CSKA Moscow for another 4 years.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matheus Reis is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The offer from Isloch for Samuel Adegbenro 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 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.
A season average of 7.11 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Gleb Popolitov is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Maxim Mukhin has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Robert Berić reports back to CSKA Moscow with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matheus Alves wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Matheus Alves is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
“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.
“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.
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.
Squad14 Jun 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.
A season's verdict on Henrique Carmo: the best of his age
CSKA Moscow have a 20-year-old the division has just voted its finest young footballer. The club's next problem is that everybody else now knows it too.
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.
“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 season average of 7.11 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.
In brief
SquadMaxim Voronov is a better footballer than he was
Ivan Oblyakov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matheus Reis is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
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.
Squad24 May 2027
Amine Bassi 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.
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.
In brief
SquadIvan Oblyakov has become a man the manager trusts
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amine Bassi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at 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 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, he is averaging 7.11, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Squad10 May 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.
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.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amine Bassi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Nobody 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 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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Amine Bassi 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.
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 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.
Squad19 Apr 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.
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 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 easiest signature of my career.” Ramiro Di Luciano and CSKA Moscow agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Ivan Oblyakov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
In brief
SquadAt 21, Kirill Glebov is already the best thing here
SquadWords at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Maxim Voronov is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Adrián Balboa will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around CSKA Moscow the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Maxim Kovzikov is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Amine Bassi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“I watch every CSKA Moscow game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Spartak Trnava runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Alerrandro’s exile
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CSKA Moscow lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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 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.
Squad8 Mar 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.
10 goals in 30 games at Ufa — 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at CSKA Moscow is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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 rules permit it and it stings anyway. Adrián Balboa has agreed terms with Krasnodar for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next 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.
Squad1 Mar 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.
CSKA Moscow opened the door and nobody walked through it. So Danilo Boza stays — listed, trained, and available — while both sides mark the days to January on the same calendar.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“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.
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.
A season average of 7.11 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matheus Reis is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Danilo Boza has his answer from CSKA Moscow; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ivan Oblyakov signs something — a contract at CSKA Moscow or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matheus Alves wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Akhmat Grozny paid $1.8M 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 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.
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.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Amine Bassi will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at CSKA Moscow escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
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.
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. CSKA Moscow will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Amine Bassi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.97. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Igor Akinfeev, and the manager let it.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Tamerlan Musaev was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.50. 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.
In brief
SquadWords at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
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.
“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.
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.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Matheus Reis has his answer from CSKA Moscow; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
3‑2 against Spartak Moscow, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
A season average of 7.04 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.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at CSKA Moscow, and 6 appearances in 22 say he has earned the hearing.
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.
30 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Kirill Glebov, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.63
A mark of 7.63 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Matheus Alves is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Matheus Alves did not need any: 8.91, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Matheus Alves 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.
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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 79 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Matheus Alves, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.94
A mark of 7.94 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.
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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
“I watch every CSKA Moscow game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Slavia Mozyr runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 86 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
0‑1 away to the standard of Sporting CP. Nobody will pretend this was a scandal; the gap is real, it is measurable, and closing it is a project rather than a team talk.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kirill Glebov did not need any: 8.01, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 95 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kirill Glebov did not need any: 8.72, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Moisés 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.
2‑0 against Vikingur, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 102 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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.
Position 3, 31 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.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Kirill Glebov, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.22
A mark of 8.22 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.
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.
Igor Akinfeev 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.
Marked 9.49 — 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.
In brief
Player ratingsAmine Bassi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
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.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Amine Bassi obliged against Amkar. 2‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is CSKA Moscow.
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.
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Moisés 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.
21 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Marked 9.02 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Amkar tried to reorganise, CSKA Moscow did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 120 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Igor Akinfeev 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.
Marked 9.44 — 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.
Akron made CSKA Moscow work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Daniel Ruiz was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.56. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
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.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Luciano Gondou in the middle of it, and Akron unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 119 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
1‑2 against Slavia Prague. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Defensive actions: 31, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Matheus Alves, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.65
A mark of 7.65 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.
25 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
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 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.
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.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Amine Bassi. 2‑1 against Pari Nizhniy Novgorod, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
2‑3 against Slavia Prague. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Matheus Alves, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.20
A mark of 8.20 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.
“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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Moisés 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Matheus Alves 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.
In brief
Player ratingsAmine Bassi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Player ratingsAdrián Balboa was on a different afternoon to everybody 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Krylya Sovetov made CSKA Moscow work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Danilo Boza 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.
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
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. Matheus Reis wants continental football; whether CSKA Moscow can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Moisés 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.
Beaten 0‑1 by Spartak Moscow in the one fixture that is never just a fixture. Work, school, the corner shop — there will be no getting away from this one.
2‑3 against Sporting CP. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
“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 shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Igor Akinfeev: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Matheus Alves, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.63
A mark of 8.63 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.
The terraces5 Oct 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 7 of the 29 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Position 2, 17 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.
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.
Moisés was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danilo Boza 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 16 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
2‑1 against Vikingur, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Luciano Gondou was at the centre of the description.
Igor Akinfeev was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Luciano Gondou scored in the 87th minute, Baltika had already begun thinking about the journey home, and CSKA Moscow took the lot.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luciano Gondou provided it, and the 8.64 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Moisés 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.
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.
Marked 8.22 — 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 12 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The fee is $1.0M, 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.
“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.
Matvey Kislyak was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 87th, and Krasnodar spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kirill Glebov did not need any: 8.13, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Moisés 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Kirill Glebov has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 19 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Danilo Boza has just signed for CSKA Moscow, and for once the answer mattered.
Pari Nizhniy Novgorod did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $1.1M for Adrián Balboa, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
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 2‑1 win over Dinamo Makhachkala, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Marked 8.80 — 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.