Lenon Farías de Souza Leite was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Maracanã have kept their man, and Mingachevir go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I did not go to Shimal to sit and watch. I want to come back to Mingachevir and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 26 matches say the rest.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Cabir Əmirli 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Mingachevir know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Mingachevir until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mingachevir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Colón have kept their man, and Mingachevir go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Wendel Bahia falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Mingachevir would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The deal with Boavista is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Tuna Luso is saying, and nobody at Mingachevir is enjoying the guessing.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Mingachevir training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lenon Farías de Souza Leite 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.
Mingachevir asked and Ferroviário said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Mohammed Kadiri was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Wendel Bahia trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
Mingachevir had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Ferroviário, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lenon Farías de Souza Leite was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Mingachevir asked and Quilmes said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mingachevir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Zagatala have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Orxan Sadıqlı. The answer from Mingachevir has not changed — yet.
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Lenon Farías de Souza Leite’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The offer from Zagatala for Orxan Sadıqlı 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.
Lenon Farías de Souza Leite 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 approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Mingachevir training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wendel Bahia 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 happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 37 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Mingachevir have made the call to Tuna Luso. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 29 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
“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 Mingachevir, and it is not being withdrawn.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Mingachevir have had the benefit of it.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Mingachevir can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 37 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Wendel Bahia falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mingachevir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Shahriyar Huseynov after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Mingachevir are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Antoine Hoppenot 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Mingachevir training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wendel Bahia is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Shahriyar Huseynov after 1‑4, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
The dugoutAbdel Lamanje asks for a word with the manager
Position 2, 29 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
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 tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Mingachevir can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Gustavo Puskas 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Mingachevir pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mingachevir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Mingachevir training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antoine Hoppenot 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 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.
Sabail next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Wendel Bahia.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Antoine Hoppenot was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
316% of the income goes out in wages at Mingachevir
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
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.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
19 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lenon Farías de Souza Leite was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mingachevir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Words at Mingachevir training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antoine Hoppenot is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I watch every Mingachevir game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Shimal runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“I have 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 Mingachevir know 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 Mingachevir 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.
Marked 7.36. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Shahriyar Huseynov chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Marked 4.84. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.91 for the rest 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 Mingachevir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lenon Farías de Souza Leite was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Cabir Əmirli is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Jabrayil will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Mingachevir were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Two goals and a mark of 8.59 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Lenon Farías de Souza Leite and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“I have 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 Mingachevir know it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Mingachevir can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Lenon Farías de Souza Leite was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Mingachevir training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wendel Bahia 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 39, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
“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 Mingachevir, and 1 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout19 Oct 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 0‑2 Shahriyar Huseynov left the room before anybody could ask which.
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
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.
Talisson 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.
Sporting Baku next, and the two sides the division is watching meet each other. Whoever wins will be told nothing is decided in the same breath as being congratulated.
Everybody at Mingachevir saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Mingachevir told Chriso something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Lenon Farías de Souza Leite has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dener signs something — a contract at Mingachevir or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody at Mingachevir will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lenon Farías de Souza Leite. 1‑0 against Shahdag Qusar, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
A performance of 8.32 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Cabir Əmirli was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.25. 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Diego Jussani has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohammed Kadiri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Mingachevir scored in the 93th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Wendel Bahia was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mingachevir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 37. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Mingachevir training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Amin Ramazanov 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.
Elçin Mustafayev 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.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Mingachevir know which stage they are at.
Boardroom21 Sep 2026
Nobody left the Mingachevir dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
“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 Mingachevir, and 1 appearances in 6 say he has earned the hearing.
The dugout21 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 Shahriyar Huseynov left the room before anybody could ask which.
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 86th, and DIFAI Agsu spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
1 for Chriso, marked 7.82, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mingachevir 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.
Minute 92, against Jabrayil, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 23 arrived, 9 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Goianésia keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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 most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Mingachevir will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Mingachevir had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Sumgayit, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Lenon Farías de Souza Leite and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Goianésia have kept their man, and Mingachevir go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Mingachevir training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wendel Bahia 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 version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Dener is living that version at Mingachevir, and it tends to show in the first month.
“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 Mingachevir, and it is not being withdrawn.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $16.1K — a club that wants Kənan Feyziyev enough to be asked twice.
Everything agreed with Goianésia, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: APOEL keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Lenon Farías de Souza Leite 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 offer went to Sumgayit 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 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.
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Bakary Jaiteh delivers — 7.74
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Bakary Jaiteh scored, was marked 7.74, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Mohammed Kadiri 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 Cabir Əmirli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Mingachevir asked and Sportivo Trinidense said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Mingachevir were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Talisson has just signed for Mingachevir, and for once the answer mattered.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
The deal with Qarabag is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Neftchi keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Amin Ramazanov and Mingachevir agree another 4 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 Mingachevir this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Bahlul Ismayilov 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. Qara Khalilzade 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mohammed Kadiri and Mingachevir agree another 3 years.
Jonah Attuquaye and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Central have kept their man, and Mingachevir go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The phone has started ringing about Taleh Qarayev again, and this time the name on the line is Shimal. Mingachevir are listening politely and promising nothing.