1‑4 to Nart, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Roman Tkachev has his answer from Sochi 2; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Yegor Totskiy
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Sochi 2 told Alexey Filimonov something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
5 saves does not settle the argument about whose fault it was, and the argument will run all week. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines whoever caused them.
Two goals and a mark of 8.68 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Yegor Totskiy. 2‑1 against Astrakhan, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 22 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.
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 hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Roman Shmelev did not need any: 7.82, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Yegor Totskiy was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
He is 18 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Yegor Totskiy is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Yegor Totskiy scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Kuban Holding, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad28 Sep 2026
16 new faces, and Sochi 2 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Yegor Totskiy trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Yegor Totskiy has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Yegor Totskiy and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Yegor Totskiy was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.18. 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.
Minute 98, against Sevastopol, 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.
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Sochi 2 has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Alexandr Metsiev, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.86
A mark of 7.86 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Marked 7.74. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Sergey Gubin was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the Sochi 2 dressing room was either.
Minute 87, against Druzhba, 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 manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Philipp Nuretdinov has his answer from Sochi 2; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Daniil Silev
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Daniil Silev has come out of that comparison in the side, and Sochi 2 have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Sergey Gubin after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
16 new faces, and Sochi 2 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.
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.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Sergey Gubin was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Sochi 2 dressing room was either.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Roman Chenchikov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Yegor Totskiy
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Sergey Gubin after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Dinamo Makhachkala 2? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
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.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Sochi 2 have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
Yegor Totskiy 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 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.
“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 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 new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Sochi 2 have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
Chances created: 6. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.
“If we are going to be beaten, let it not be because somebody in here could not be bothered.” He stood up and said it in front of everybody, which is a thing a squad remembers about a man for years.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.41 beside his name.
Mikhail Slepov 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.
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.
A point taken on 86 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.
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 dugout10 Aug 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.” Sergey Gubin chose the glass-half-full version of 2‑2; the supporters left with the other one.
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.
Yegor Totskiy 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.
15 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.