Alexey Mironov 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 watch every Rostov game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Fehervar runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 Ronaldo signs something — a contract at Rostov or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
A call-up flatters the player and the club that produced him in the same breath. Rostov would like him back in one piece and know they will not be consulted.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Valery Anisimov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Rostov are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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 Rostov 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Maxim Mukhin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Olakunle Olusegun signs something — a contract at Rostov or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Dmitry Chistyakov 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Rostov, and 1 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
Nobody at Rostov 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 Rostov, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Timur Suleimanov obliged against Krylya Sovetov. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Rostov.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rostov can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom1 Mar 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at Rostov until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Olakunle Olusegun was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 19 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The words a physio says slowly. 19 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“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 Rostov, and it is not being withdrawn.
Olakunle Olusegun 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.
Nobody at Rostov 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Oumar Sako trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Rostov lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Flamengo keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Rostov has been clear about where Danila Prokhin stands, which is more than many ever get.
9 goals in 20 games at Fakel — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Rostov 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 33 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Anton Zabolotny had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Olimpia keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and MFK Skalica waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Rostov is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The phone has started ringing about Anton Zabolotny again, and this time the name on the line is Lokomotiv Moscow. Rostov are listening politely and promising nothing.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Rostov can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Rostov have done the hard part with Flamengo, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
11 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“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 Rostov, and it is not being withdrawn.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. German Ignatov has agreed terms with Akhmat Grozny for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Alexey Mironov 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Artem Bandikyan has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Rostov have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
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 Maxim Mukhin.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Successful dribbles: 44. 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rostov can pretend not to have heard.
Dmitry Chistyakov 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.
“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; Rostov are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Rostov know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Rostov told Victor Melekhin something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Maxim Turischev’s exile
Two goals and a mark of 8.63 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
1 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was 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 Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Position 15 and 15 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Olakunle Olusegun was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“Nobody 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 dugout4 Jan 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Evgeni Shilov chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. CSKA Moscow defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
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 Dominik Steczyk is on it.
Olakunle Olusegun 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.85 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
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.
A 1‑1 draw with Dinamo Makhachkala leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Evgeni Shilov was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Rostov dressing room was either.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Rostov have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Rostov can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Savely Krylov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Sergei Mikhaylov has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Alexey Mironov 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Rostov can tell you which week it ends in.
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 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 Dominik Steczyk is on it.
Successful dribbles: 38. 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.
Market30 Nov 2026
Rostov may not be able to give Ronaldo what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Ronaldo wants continental football; whether Rostov can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Rostov, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Timur Suleimanov obliged against Kuban. 3‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Rostov.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Rostov can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
A point taken on 90 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Evgeni Shilov after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Successful dribbles: 28. 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.
Olakunle Olusegun 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.
Position 13, 11 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.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Evgeni Shilov was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Rostov dressing room was either.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Mikhail Schetinin 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, Rostov have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.
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.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Rostov training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexey Mironov 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 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 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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Orenburg? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
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 Anton Shamonin is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Rostov know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov 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 Dmitry Chistyakov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Victor Melekhin, and the manager let it.
Squad12 Oct 2026
13 new faces, and Rostov 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.
A 1‑1 draw with Nizhniy Novgorod leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Evgeni Shilov chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Two goals and a mark of 8.55 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Olakunle Olusegun 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.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Rostov are no longer polite ones.
Market28 Sep 2026
Rostov may not be able to give Ronaldo what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Ronaldo wants continental football; whether Rostov can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Danila Prokhin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 1‑2 Evgeni Shilov left the room before anybody could ask which.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Olimpia keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Minute 91, against CSKA Moscow, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Rostov have lost him in all but the paperwork.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.91 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 20 signed and 9 gone
That is the business done at Rostov until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Rostov ran out of time with Rodina. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Alexei Serov has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Yuri Zimin is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
0‑3 against Dinamo Makhachkala, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Rostov asked and Ural said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Add another name to the list: Gomel have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Anton Shamonin. The answer from Rostov has not changed — yet.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Mikhail Schetinin 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Evgeni Shilov after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for Ibrahim Ajasa
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Dinamo Moscow had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The offer from Naftan for Anton Shamonin 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 chase for Mikhail Schetinin ended with $530.0K changing hands and Lokomotiv Moscow out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Rostov asked and Gimnasia La Plata 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 listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Andrey Langovich had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Moscow have kept their man, and Rostov go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.94 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The phone has started ringing about Victor Melekhin again, and this time the name on the line is Dinamo Moscow. Rostov are listening politely and promising nothing.
Everything agreed with Lokomotiv Moscow, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Olimpia is saying, and nobody at Rostov is enjoying the guessing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rostov this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spartak Moscow have kept their man, and Rostov go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The phone has started ringing about Andrey Langovich again, and this time the name on the line is Urawa Reds. Rostov are listening politely and promising nothing.
Olakunle Olusegun 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.
$330.0K was the most the club would pay and Arsenal Tula 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.
Ismail Bekbolat is 18, and Rostov have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The offer from Lokomotiv Moscow for Victor Melekhin 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Konstantin Kuchaev provided it, and the 7.91 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Rudar Velenje had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The fee is $500.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Rodina drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Rostov have gone to Arsenal Tula 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.
Rostov have gone to Kairat 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Rostov may not be able to give Ronaldo what he wants
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Ronaldo wants continental football; whether Rostov can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Olakunle Olusegun 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.