A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Neftchi will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Neftchi and MOIK Baku in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Falaye Sacko 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Neftchi 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 Neftchi can pretend not to have heard.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Neftchi may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Emin Mahmudov 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ifeanyi Mathew. 2‑0 against Gabala, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match23 Oct 2027
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Neftchi. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Marked 8.43. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Neftchi.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
Ifeanyi Mathew was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.36. 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Neftchi 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. Klismahn wants continental football; whether Neftchi 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 Emin Mahmudov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
The dugout18 Oct 2027
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 Dimitrij Jafarov left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 100 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Falaye Sacko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Neftchi, another week without a signature from Kenan Pirić.
“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 Neftchi know it.
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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Freddy Vargas is on it.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Araz-Nakhchivan in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 109 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Zira will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Neftchi were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings4 Oct 2027
A brace, and Freddy Vargas takes the afternoon — 8.44
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Freddy Vargas provided it, and the 8.44 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
7.96, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Neftchi did not have in the autumn.
Squad4 Oct 2027
Emin Mahmudov 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Neftchi will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Neftchi can pretend not to have heard.
Freddy Vargas 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 Emin Mahmudov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Freddy Vargas in the middle of it, and Shamakhi unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Player ratings27 Sep 2027
Ifeanyi Mathew was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.32. 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 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 Neftchi know it.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Neftchi will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Falaye Sacko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Neftchi 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 14 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Shots: 7. 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.
At 20 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Qarabag defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
“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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Emin Mahmudov 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 particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Joaquín Freitas 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.
Player ratings13 Sep 2027
Imad Faraj was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.45. 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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 39 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Neftchi is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 9 actions, 7.08, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Neftchi people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Neftchi close the window on a squad of their own making
17 in and 19 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
The phone has started ringing about Dragoljub Savić again, and this time the name on the line is MOIK Baku. Neftchi are listening politely and promising nothing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emin Mahmudov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Neftchi know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Elvin Bədəlov 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
The dugoutFalaye Sacko is still being punished for one mistake
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Neftchi people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The chase for Musa Qurbanlı ended with $2.8M changing hands and Qarabag out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Neftchi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Falaye Sacko 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 3‑1 win over Kapaz, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Freddy Vargas was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.46. 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 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Neftchi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Emin Mahmudov 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.
Neftchi asked and Fortaleza said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Minute 90, against Sumgayit, 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.
12 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.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
Neftchi had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Qarabag, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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.
Match14 Aug 2027
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Neftchi. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
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.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Falaye Sacko 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.
Neftchi asked and Sport Recife said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The first defeat in 6 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Sabah; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and DIFAI Agsu waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Neftchi is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Marek for Nasko Milev 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 is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Freddy Vargas wants continental football; whether Neftchi 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 Falaye Sacko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Neftchi know it.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Neftchi would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Position 2, 45 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Neftchi, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Elvin Camalov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Neftchi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Neftchi asked and Qarabag said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Neftchi can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emin Mahmudov 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 Neftchi 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: DIFAI Agsu will make the call about Cavid Medvedev this week. Neftchi have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Neftchi have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Add another name to the list: Mingachevir have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Dragoljub Savić. The answer from Neftchi has not changed — yet.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Falaye Sacko 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Berkay Vardar has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Neftchi have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
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.
Squad26 Jul 2027
11 new faces, and Neftchi 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Vincent Aboubakar is on it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Neftchi, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Qarabag keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Neftchi heard it as anything else.
Add another name to the list: Dinamo Minsk have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ağadadaş Salyanskiy. The answer from Neftchi has not changed — yet.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Falaye Sacko 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Alperen Aydın has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Neftchi have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Igor Ribeiro trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftchi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Freddy Vargas is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Joaquín Freitas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Neftchi told Breno Almeida something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Neftchi know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Neftchi would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Neftchi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Add another name to the list: MOIK Baku have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Dragoljub Savić. The answer from Neftchi has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Falaye Sacko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Neftchi asked and Slavia Prague said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
7 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
Nobody at Neftchi 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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Neftchi have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The name of Alassane Coulibaly has come up in conversations Neftchi were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Falaye Sacko 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.
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Neftchi people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Neftchi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Wycombe Wanderers have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Nobody at Neftchi 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 clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Neftchi people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Neftchi can pretend not to have heard.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Falaye Sacko 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.
Neftchi asked and Wycombe Wanderers said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Slavia Prague have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Freddy Vargas is on it.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Neftchi will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Breno Almeida
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Mingachevir waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Neftchi is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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 Neftchi, and it is not being withdrawn.
The instruction came from the boardroom and the dugout did not agree with it. Somebody will go, the fee will be called good business, and the manager will spend the season rebuilding around the space.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Falaye Sacko 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.
Murad Xaçayev 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Igor Ribeiro has his answer from Neftchi; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Cavid Medvedev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Neftchi the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Igor Ribeiro and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Neftchi can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Nobody at Neftchi will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
This is the season the town will measure the next twenty against. The trophy travels home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.
Qualification is done, and next season the floodlights come on for something bigger. A stage for the players, oxygen for the accounts and a passport for everybody else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Neftchi can pretend not to have heard.
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. Neftchi will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.38 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match19 May 2027
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Neftchi. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
13 clean sheets across a season, and the one award on the pitch nobody else is eligible for. Most keepers get through a whole career without a year like it.
In brief
SquadWords at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Falaye Sacko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
9 goals in 10 games at Iberia 1999 — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Neftchi updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
4 goals in 8 games at Ararat — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Neftchi updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Elvin Bədəlov has written the date down.
Nobody writes a headline about a tutor. Nobody has to be told, either, what happens to a signing who spends two years being the man nobody can talk to at lunch.
Position 2, 45 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.
Nobody at Neftchi will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Neftchi would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
4 goals in 18 games at Mingachevir — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Neftchi updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Neftchi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Falaye Sacko 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Nasko Milev is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Neftchi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Sessi D'Almeida signs something — a contract at Neftchi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Neftchi. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Neftchi can pretend not to have heard.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Falaye Sacko 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.
7 goals in 7 games at Iberia 1999 — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Neftchi updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Luis Ortiz is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Neftchi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Sharpest man there all week, by every account. It is the quietest line on this page and it usually runs the week before somebody’s run in the side begins.
Nobody at Neftchi 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. Neftchi know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
6 goals in 6 games at Iberia 1999 — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Neftchi updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Neftchi. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Freddy Vargas has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
The word out of the training ground is that he has been the sharpest man there all week. It is the quietest story a paper carries and it usually runs the week before somebody's run in the side begins.
The agreement at Sabail has 31 days left in it, with 0 appearances to weigh. Three doors: keep him, sell him, lend him again — and none of them stays open long.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Falaye Sacko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Neftchi know it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Falaye Sacko is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Moustapha Seck signs something — a contract at Neftchi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Neftchi would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Elvin Bədəlov has written the date down.
In brief
The dugoutEmil Balayev knocks on the manager's door
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Neftchi can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Neftchi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at Neftchi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Falaye Sacko 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 have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Neftchi can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Murad Xaçayev 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.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Freddy Vargas is on it.
Market5 Apr 2027
Nasko Milev returns from a loan that gave him nothing
3 appearances and 1 goals is not a season, it is a year somebody has lost. Whether that is his fault, the borrowing club's or the people who arranged it is the argument the next few weeks will have.
“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 Neftchi, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Joaquín Freitas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Neftchi 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. Neftchi know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Breno Almeida has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
The least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Imad Faraj’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Neftchi have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Falaye Sacko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match17 Mar 2027
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Neftchi. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 7.02, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 5 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Neftchi can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Falaye Sacko 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 Neftchi 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. Neftchi know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Neftchi that is a harder question to answer.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Neftchi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“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 Neftchi know it.
Nobody at Neftchi will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Neftchi would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Neftchi have no good answer.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Sten Reinkort’s exile
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Neftchi can pretend not to have heard.
“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; Neftchi are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It is sentimental, it is completely genuine, and it is the beginning of a departure nobody has announced. The club can be gracious about it or it can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Falaye Sacko 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.
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 Neftchi would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
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.
Falaye Sacko 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Breno Almeida has his answer from Neftchi; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Nobody at Neftchi 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.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Neftchi has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
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.
Murad Xaçayev 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
5 new faces, and Neftchi 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.
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.
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 Neftchi would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Neftchi know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“For the first time in years I am picked because somebody wants me in the team.” Kapaz suits him; the awkward conversation belongs to Neftchi, and the summer will force it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Neftchi have no good answer.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Neftchi can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Neftchi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Falaye Sacko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Neftchi asked and Araz-Nakhchivan said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Vincent Aboubakar has come out of that comparison in the side, and Neftchi have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Something was said to Ağadadaş Salyanskiy and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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 last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 45 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Neftchi can pretend not to have heard.
Neftchi have gone to Qarabag 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.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.12 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Neftchi close the window on a squad of their own making
3 in and 5 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Lucas Santos is living that version at Neftchi, and it tends to show in the first month.
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 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.
“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 Neftchi, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Neftchi people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Neftchi had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Ural, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
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.
Neftchi asked and Portuguesa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. Neftchi will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.85 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 Neftchi, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.38 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Neftchi have done the hard part with Ural, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
In brief
MatchEmin Mahmudov among the goals in a wild afternoon
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Gabala had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Zagatala waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Neftchi is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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 Neftchi, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from DIFAI Agsu for Cavid Medvedev was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The deal with Sturm Graz 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 Flamengo is saying, and nobody at Neftchi is enjoying the guessing.
Neftchi asked and Araz-Nakhchivan said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The offer from Araz-Nakhchivan for Ľubomír Tupta was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Neftchi have had the benefit of it.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.97 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“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; Neftchi are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Neftchi has been clear about where Moustapha Seck stands, which is more than many ever get.
The name of Emil Səfərov has come up in conversations Neftchi were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Imad Faraj. 1‑0 against Imishli, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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 Alassane Coulibaly.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Elvin Bədəlov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Neftchi needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
Murad Xaçayev 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Dimitrij Jafarov could afford to be generous.
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 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.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Dimitrij Jafarov could afford to be generous.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Dimitrij Jafarov after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
Shots: 15. 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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Araz-Nakhchivan? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Emil Səfərov’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Neftchi needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Neftchi know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Dimitrij Jafarov could afford to be generous.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, Neftchi have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Dimitrij Jafarov after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Falaye Sacko is on it.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Neftchi have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Neftchi. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Neftchi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
3 goals in 8 games at Jabrayil — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Neftchi updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Position 2, 23 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
With 5 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Denzel Jubitana has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
In brief
The dugoutĽubomír Tupta asks for a word with the manager
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.93 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Denzel Jubitana’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Neftchi.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Freddy Vargas was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.15. 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.
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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Dimitrij Jafarov could afford to be generous.
15 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.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Vincent Aboubakar provided it, and the 8.32 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.
Chances created: 13. The column nobody reads carried the whole story of the match, and his name was at the top of it.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Dimitrij Jafarov kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Alassane Coulibaly has written the date down.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Nasko Milev’s exile
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ağadadaş Salyanskiy is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Something was said to Imad Faraj and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Sumgayit next, and one man in the Neftchi dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ifeanyi Mathew signs something — a contract at Neftchi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Luis Ortiz has written the date down.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
A side in position 8 visits next. The result will not make anybody’s season and it could quietly break the shape of one, which is why the manager has been watching the video since Sunday.
“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 Neftchi know it.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Falaye Sacko is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.02 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Neftchi can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Vincent Aboubakar. 2‑0 against Imishli, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.43 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Dimitrij Jafarov, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Sabah in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Sessi D'Almeida signs something — a contract at Neftchi or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Neftchi people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Dimitrij Jafarov after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Nobody at Neftchi is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
32 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Neftchi lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Vincent Aboubakar in the middle of it, and Gabala unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Dimitrij Jafarov kept it short after the 3‑2 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Emil Balayev’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Neftchi needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The words a physio says slowly. 40 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 anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Neftchi, and it is not being withdrawn.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Neftchi have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Neftchi close the window on a squad of their own making
17 in and 8 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Emil Səfərov reports back to Neftchi with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
The name of Bassala Sambou has come up in conversations Neftchi were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Denzel Jubitana is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
6 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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Cavid Medvedev had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
Shamakhi paid $740.0K and Neftchi took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all 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.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Dimitrij Jafarov on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Alassane Coulibaly had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Neftchi have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Zira defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Igor Ribeiro’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Neftchi needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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 Neftchi would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Nobody at Neftchi is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
The offer from Pakhtakor for Alassane Coulibaly 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spezia have kept their man, and Neftchi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A performance of 8.14 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Dimitrij Jafarov, on a 3‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The plan went upstairs and came back down. Nothing about that will make a headline anywhere else, and everybody who works at the training ground will remember it for years.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Shafa had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Imishli paid $380.0K and Neftchi took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Qara Bayramov is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Neftchi has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Alassane Coulibaly has just signed for Neftchi, and for once the answer mattered.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Vincent Aboubakar 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.