21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pakhtakor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Pakhtakor close the window on a squad of their own making
0 in and 1 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 bid was some way short and Pakhtakor did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Pakhtakor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bashar Resan 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.
Sardor Sobirxo'jaev and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
29 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Pakhtakor lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Kokand 1912 waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Pakhtakor is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Pakhtakor they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Bashar Resan 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 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Pakhtakor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zaid Tahseen 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 Pakhtakor 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.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Pakhtakor lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Zalgiris for Bashar Resan 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.
Position 3, 21 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pakhtakor 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 Bashar Resan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Aziz Turg'unboyev 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 Pakhtakor, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Kokand 1912 had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Pakhtakor people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Pakhtakor have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pakhtakor 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. Mashal have kept their man, and Pakhtakor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Zaid Tahseen 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.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Pakhtakor will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Hojimat Erkinov 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 Pakhtakor, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Pakhtakor can pretend not to have heard.
Bashar Resan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Add another name to the list: Shortan have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Davron To'laganov. The answer from Pakhtakor has not changed — yet.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Zaid Tahseen 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.
Nasaf 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
5 new faces, and Pakhtakor 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.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Pakhtakor know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Aziz Turg'unboyev was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Pakhtakor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bashar Resan 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 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.
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 Dostonbek Hamdamov is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Pakhtakor. 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 Pakhtakor, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Pakhtakor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bashar Resan is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pakhtakor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Bashar Resan signs something — a contract at Pakhtakor or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutOybek Bozorov knocks on the manager’s door
Sardor Sobirxo'jaev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Pakhtakor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zaid Tahseen 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.
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 Hojimat Erkinov is on it.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Bashar Resan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Morteza Pouraliganji has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Bashar Resan is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Muhammadqodir Hamroaliyev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Bashar Resan 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Zaid Tahseen 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.
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.
Nobody at Pakhtakor will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pakhtakor, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Hojimat Erkinov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pakhtakor the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Bashar Resan and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Pakhtakor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zaid Tahseen 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.
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 Aziz Turg'unboyev is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Bashar Resan signs something — a contract at Pakhtakor 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 Pakhtakor. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Vladimir Nazarov: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Abdurauf Bo'riev scored, was marked 7.89, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pakhtakor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Pakhtakor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dostonbek Hamdamov is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Marked 8.28 — 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 88. Navbahor had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Bashar Resan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Zaid Tahseen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every Pakhtakor game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Neftchi runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 Bashar Resan is on it.
Sardor Sobirxo'jaev 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Zaid Tahseen 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.
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.
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 Pakhtakor, 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.
Position 3, 21 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Hojimat Erkinov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pakhtakor the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Bashar Resan falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pakhtakor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pakhtakor 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 Zaid Tahseen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
Bashar Resan 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Abrorbek Ismoilov has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Pakhtakor have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
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 watch every Pakhtakor game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Neftchi runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 Bashar Resan is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sherzod Nasrullayev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Pakhtakor that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
A call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. Pakhtakor would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Pakhtakor. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Sherzod Nasrullayev 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Pakhtakor training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bashar Resan 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.
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.
7 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.
Nobody at Pakhtakor will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Pakhtakor, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Hojimat Erkinov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Pakhtakor the goodbyes have quietly begun.
5 matches without defeat, and then Navbahor. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Zaid Tahseen 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 dugout28 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 Farhod Suyunov left the room before anybody could ask which.
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 Aziz Turg'unboyev is on it.
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 7.68 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 Pakhtakor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
7 goals in one match, Aziz Turg'unboyev on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Pakhtakor and Neftchi.
Pakhtakor asked and Abia Warriors 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 goals and a mark of 8.70 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bashar Resan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Sardor Sobirxo'jaev 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.
Pakhtakor asked and Dinamo Batumi 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 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Sogdiana will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Pakhtakor were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
A brace, and Bashar Resan takes the afternoon — 8.51
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Bashar Resan provided it, and the 8.51 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 16 arrived, 7 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Pakhtakor asked and Navbahor said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bashar Resan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Sardor Sobirxo'jaev was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Marked 8.09 — 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.
A mark of 7.87 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Pakhtakor is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
$1.8M was the most the club would pay and Neftchi were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Pakhtakor had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Urartu, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Pakhtakor have gone to Neftchi with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Pakhtakor this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Hojimat Erkinov again, and this time the name on the line is Lokomotiv. Pakhtakor are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Bashar Resan 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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Ibrohim Ibragimov obliged against Obod. 5‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Pakhtakor.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.35 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Two goals and a mark of 8.46 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Flamarion was one of the reasons people came, and $2.2M does not replace that by itself.
The phone has started ringing about Vladimir Nazarov again, and this time the name on the line is Tobol. Pakhtakor are listening politely and promising nothing.
The offer from Nasaf for Hojimat Erkinov 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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at NK Maribor is saying, and nobody at Pakhtakor is enjoying the guessing.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Navbahor will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Shukron Yo'ldoshev has pre-agreed a move to Pakhtakor, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
The phone has started ringing about Flamarion again, and this time the name on the line is Astana. Pakhtakor are listening politely and promising nothing.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Hojiakbar Alijonov and Pakhtakor agree another 4 years.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Arsenal Tula have kept their man, and Pakhtakor go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Sherzod Nasrullayev and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Flamarion wants continental football; whether Pakhtakor can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Successful dribbles: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Bashar Resan 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.