Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zenit have kept their man, and CSKA Moscow go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Damián Puebla has, at CSKA Moscow, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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.
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.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, and a scan that said otherwise. He goes back to Akhmat Grozny; CSKA Moscow go back to the market; and both will insist there is no story here.
CSKA Moscow asked and Akhmat Grozny said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Ilja Agapov is a CSKA Moscow player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and CSKA Moscow supporters have already started telling it.
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.
641 appearances across 24 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
The offer went to Akhmat Grozny this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around CSKA Moscow people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Rostov have kept their man, and CSKA Moscow go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
10 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
The offer from Aston Villa for Matvey Kislyak 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.69 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Artem Bandikyan has agreed terms with Rostov for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
The name of Matvey Kislyak has come up in conversations CSKA Moscow were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Daler Kuzyaev 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 run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 4 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Vizela waiting with a shirt. Nobody at CSKA Moscow is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Foolad for Henrique Carmo 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.
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.
Daler Kuzyaev and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
A brace, and Ivan Toney takes the afternoon — 8.90
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ivan Toney provided it, and the 8.90 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. CSKA Moscow will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
The offer from El Masry for Alerrandro 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.
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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexey Miranchuk 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.
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.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. CSKA Moscow have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Alexey Miranchuk was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Moisés was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Position 2, 53 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.
Daler Kuzyaev was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.00, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexey Miranchuk 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 phone has started ringing about Maxim Voronov again, and this time the name on the line is Rampla Juniors. CSKA Moscow are listening politely and promising nothing.
In brief
BoardroomNobody left the CSKA Moscow dressing room in a hurry
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Moisés
20Edition
The CSKA Moscow Gazette
14 Dec 2026
From our football correspondentTriumph
Match12 Dec 2026
Another one collected away from home
7 on the bounce on the road for CSKA Moscow. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexey Miranchuk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Getting past Igor Akinfeev has become the hardest job in the division
13 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
12 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.
“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 is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether CSKA Moscow can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CSKA Moscow can pretend not to have heard.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether CSKA Moscow can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexey Miranchuk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match21 Nov 2026
After 12 games, CSKA Moscow finally taste it again
The first defeat in 12 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Akhmat; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Danila Kozlov, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.99
A mark of 7.99 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.
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.
“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.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Akron will replay every second of the added time for a week.
5 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Daler Kuzyaev and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Moisés was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Two goals and a mark of 8.89 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexey Miranchuk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
4 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
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.
A 1‑0 win over Nizhniy Novgorod, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Marked 8.26 — 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.
Shots: 22. 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.
2‑0 against Dinamo 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.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CSKA Moscow lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CSKA Moscow can pretend not to have heard.
Position 2, 34 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.
Daler Kuzyaev 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.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The words a physio says slowly. 27 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for CSKA Moscow. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Dinamo Moscow next, which means a week that starts on Monday. Everything else on this page will be forgotten by Saturday; this fixture will not be forgotten for a year.
The words a physio says slowly. 34 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexey Miranchuk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Daler Kuzyaev. 1‑0 against Lokomotiv Moscow, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
42 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.
Successful dribbles: 33. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Two goals and a mark of 9.06 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexey Miranchuk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Matvey Kislyak did not need any: 7.60, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CSKA Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexey Miranchuk 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. Matvey Kislyak 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 8.35 — 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 words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
Baltika will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. CSKA Moscow were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Maxim Voronov had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.07 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 21 signed and 1 gone
That is the business done at CSKA Moscow until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
CSKA Moscow ran out of time with Rubin. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Moisés was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
24 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 now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Al-Diriyah have kept their man, and CSKA Moscow go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at CSKA Moscow training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexey Miranchuk 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.
6 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Makar Tolstoy left the room before anybody could ask which.
Successful dribbles: 34. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ufa have kept their man, and CSKA Moscow go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexey Miranchuk was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ivan Toney 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. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about CSKA Moscow and Dinamo Makhachkala in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
A 4‑2 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Moisés was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Al-Ahli did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $13.9M for Ivan Toney, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Atlanta United FC did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $11.7M for Alexey Miranchuk, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Besiktas have kept their man, and CSKA Moscow go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ivan Toney has just signed for CSKA Moscow, and for once the answer mattered.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Matheus Alves, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.99
A mark of 7.99 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.
Every supporter in the ground could have named the hole in this team, and most of them did, loudly, for months. Alexandr Sobolev has been signed to close 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.
CSKA Moscow have gone to Al-Ahli with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
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.
“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.
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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Anton Belyaev is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mikhail Zimnin has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
In brief
Player ratingsLuciano Gondou was on a different afternoon to everybody else
$11.7M on the table at Atlanta United FC. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Two goals and a mark of 8.98 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 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.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsKirill Glebov beats them one at a time
SquadMoisés falls out with a teammate over standards