Two goals and a mark of 8.05 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Ilja Ivarlak, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 7.83
A mark of 7.83 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Artem Nekrasov 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.
22 new faces, and Spartak Moscow 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.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
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 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.
Shots: 9. 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.
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.
“Nobody outside is coming to save us.” It was short, it was not comfortable, and by all accounts the Spartak Moscow 2 squad were quieter afterwards than they had been all season.
Successful dribbles: 27. 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.
Matvey Kuznetsov 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danil Makushenko is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Vladlen Chizhov on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Nobody at Spartak Moscow 2 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.
A new face in his position, and Pavel Pelevin suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Spartak Moscow 2 have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
Pavel Pelevin 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.
“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.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Zvezda in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Spartak Moscow 2 would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Ilja Ivarlak, 17, plays like he has been here for years — 7.63
A mark of 7.63 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 17-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Makar Vysochenko and Spartak Moscow 2 agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Artem Nosachev 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.
33 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.