The comments on Sports.ru are a unique ecosystem. In a single thread you can meet a tactical genius who knows Khimki's xG and a man who has come simply to remind everyone that "this never happened under Stalin/Carrera/Semin".

A study of the locals and a complete classification

Part I: Visionaries and analysts

1. The tactical bore For him football isn't about goals, it's about the movement of vectors. He despises emotion and believes only in geometry.

  • Depth: He genuinely believes that a 1:0 win with an xG of 0.15 against 2.50 is a "statistical error" and a "crime against logic". His motto: "The scoreboard is for the plebs, build-up structure is for eternity." If he sees the goalkeeper boot the ball out for a throw-in, he'll write it up as "a deliberate narrowing of the playing space to provoke a high press".

2. The screenshot-and-ruler genius A man who trusts neither his eyes nor the electronics. His sworn enemy is the official offside line.

  • Depth: He is convinced that the people in the VAR room draw the lines crooked on purpose. To prove the truth, he takes a screenshot of the broadcast, opens Paint and draws his own line, which usually passes through the defender's heel and the striker's knee at the same time. His argument: "I held a protractor up to the monitor, it's clearly 179°, not a right angle! We're being robbed again!"

3. The armchair scout Knows every wonderkid in the Paraguayan league and the Slovenian second tier. His main source of knowledge is the Football Manager database.

Depth: Any 100-million purchase by a top club is a personal insult to him. He instantly finds a 17-year-old from Benfica's reserves who "by progressive-passing metrics is already twice as good as your overhyped Brazilian". He's certain that scouts at every club in the world are paid for nothing, since all you need is a filter by age and price in Google.

Part II: Management and financial control

4. The moralising accountant His brain is a calculator that converts euros into socially significant infrastructure.

  • Depth: Sees a footballer's contract worth €30 million and instantly works out that the money could have fed a small Siberian town for 30 years. Fond of phrases like: "Running after a ball while doctors earn pennies." Sincerely believes that if footballers were paid minimum wage, they'd start playing "for the badge" and "for the Motherland" with far more quality.

5. The agent's shadow A man who "knows for certain" who's going where, because his second cousin lives in the same stairwell as the club CEO's driver.

  • Depth: Every transfer to him is a "carve-up" and an "agent scheme". He sees hidden meanings in a player posting a photo in trainers the same colour as another club's kit. His comment always begins with "Mark my words..." and he never admits he was wrong if the move doesn't happen — "they just couldn't agree on the kickbacks at the last minute".

6. The radical liquidator He has no half-tones. His favourite pastime is "clearing out the squad".

  • Depth: Ready to terminate a club legend's contract after one bad turnover. His vocabulary consists of verbs: "sack", "chuck out", "terminate". If a player misses from five metres, the Liquidator demands not just a substitution but a lifetime ban from the profession and immediate deportation to the First League with no right of return.

7. The "second chance" advocate

A saintly man with an inexhaustible supply of patience.

Depth: Ready to defend a striker with zero goals for three years. He'll always find an excuse: bad pitch, uncomfortable boots, a row with the wife, Mercury in retrograde. His trump card: "Remember how Henry started at Arsenal, everyone hated him too!" The fact that Henry started scoring within a month while his protégé has been silent for three years is, for the Humanist, merely "an insignificant detail".

Part III: Keepers of history and war veterans

8. The Messi-Ronaldo war veteran A soldier who never came back from a war that ended ten years ago.

  • Depth: Under any news item — even one about a five-a-side tournament in the yard — he'll find a way to set the Leo and Cris fans on each other. He keeps the 2012 non-penalty goal stats bookmarked and is ready at any moment to fire off the argument about "cup goals". For him football died when they left Europe, but he continues to stand his watch of hatred.

9. The Old Testament hater A man who is certain that football ended with the invention of hair gel.

  • Depth: His ideal is 1970s football, where players had a pint before the match and got their legs broken during it without a yellow card. He despises brightly coloured modern boots, VAR and footballers who "cry at the slightest touch". His favourite phrase: "There used to be real men, now it's softies on little legs."

10. The "Bring Him Back!" cultist A walking lament for paradise lost.

  • Depth: Blames every club failure on the departure of the coach who worked there in 2008. Under Carrera/Semin/Berdyev there was "a spark"; now there's "emptiness". Ignores the fact that his idol has flopped at five clubs in a row in recent years. Believes that the mere presence of "the Legend" on the touchline will make the ball fly into the top corner.

11. The oracle of the past A man with a phenomenal ability to remember only his correct predictions.

  • Depth: If a player flops, the Oracle will inevitably turn up with a link to his own comment from five years ago where he downvoted that news item. He tactfully keeps quiet about the million other comments where he predicted greatness for people now playing in amateur leagues.

12. The editorial critic A veteran who logs on to Sports.ru to remind everyone how much he despises it.

Depth: Remembers the days when the articles were written in Latin (or so it felt), and the analysis was so deep you couldn't get out without scuba gear. Greets every new social-media round-up with the comment: "Where's Poroshin? Where's Dud? Why am I reading about trainers instead of the philosophy of 4-4-2?" But keeps refreshing the front page every 5 minutes.

Part IV: Identity and geography

13. The geo-patriot Uses Sports.ru like a radio request show for sending shout-outs.

  • Depth: He doesn't care what the news is about. His job is to mark territory. "Samara in the house!", "Almaty, alga!" Sincerely believes that the number of upvotes under his comment directly affects the urban development of his city.

14. The local club patriot Blinded by love for his club to the point of total loss of contact with reality.

  • Depth: If his club loses 0:6, he'll write: "But look how we kept the ball in the 12th minute! The opponents just got lucky." Praises players for "effort" even if they spent the whole match in the centre circle. Sees a conspiracy of referees and the RFU in every corner awarded against his team.

15. The Euro-snob A man who only enters RPL news items to express his fastidious "ugh".

  • Depth: His typical day is watching Brighton v Brentford. Arriving in the comments for Baltika v Pari NN, he will invariably write: "How do you watch this? After the Premier League it looks like slow-motion footage from a care home." Believes that watching Russian football does irreparable damage to his aesthetic taste.

16. The professional "officer's daughter" A character with "reliable insider info" straight from the enemy's lair.

  • Depth: Favourite move: "I've lived in [Berlin/London/Paris] for 20 years myself, believe me, it's not so clear-cut here!" This is followed by a tale of how football in the West is rotting, fans are made to pay for everything and the stadiums are falling apart. Only in our RPL is there a true oasis of freedom and quality. Perfectly mimics an "objective observer".

17. The glory-hunting defector A man with the most flexible soul and a set of avatars for every occasion.

Depth: Supports Manchester City, but as soon as they lose to Real, instantly remembers that he "always admired the greatness of Madrid". Doesn't know the club's history but shouts "We are the champions!" louder than anyone. His loyalty lasts until the first crisis.

Part V: Ideology and hate

18. The geopolitical pessimist ("It's all over") He has a clear logical chain: from a bad pitch to the collapse of the economy.

  • Depth: Turns any news item into a lament for the squandered oil money. If a footballer bought an expensive car, that's corruption. If he didn't, it means the country can't even afford cars. His comments are concentrated sarcasm and hopelessness. "In this country they can't even make a ball round, what are you surprised about?"

19. The professional flag-waver The man for whom "our football is the best in the world because it's ours".

  • Depth: Actively promotes the idea that the absence of European competition is a cleansing from "the Western contagion". Explains any failure by "our special path" and the fact that "delicate Europeans wouldn't survive in our snow".

20. The professional anti-fan A man who gets off on the defeats of one specific club.

Depth: He knows more about the team he hates than their devoted fans do. Follows every injury, every scandal, every social-media post. His main goal is to arrive in the comments after that club loses and write: "Justice has prevailed, the boardroom club got what it deserved."

Part VI: Lords of the feedback

21. The laconic troll A genius of brevity who takes all the laurels.

  • Depth: Doesn't write long tirades. He just waits for the moment. Under news of a Spartak defeat he'll write: "Consistency." Under news of an ageing player's transfer: "Straight to the pension fund, skip the queue." Collects hundreds of upvotes and becomes "Legend of the Day" having spent 3 seconds on it.

22. The grammar nazi For him a misplaced apostrophe matters more than the result of a World Cup final.

  • Depth: His motto: "If you don't know the rules of the Russian language, how can you reason about the offside rule?" Nullifies any tactical analysis, however deep, by pointing to a missing comma in the fifth paragraph. Sincerely believes that literacy correlates directly with footballing intelligence.

23. The emoji abstractionist A man who has forgotten how to put letters together into words.

  • Depth: His reply is always a canvas of clowns, flames and suitcases. From the set of emojis you can gauge the full depth of his tragedy or delight. Never argues in text, just pelts his opponent with poo emojis and feels like a winner.

24. The grandmaster of downvotes Deliberately swims against the tide.

Depth: If everyone praises Messi, he'll write that he's "an overhyped jogger". If everyone slates Maguire, he'll prove he's "the misunderstood best defender of the decade". Feeds on the fury in the replies. His goal is to see a record number of downvotes under his post and chuckle with satisfaction: "Stirred up the swamp."

Part VII: The extras and the special forces

25. The proud ignoramus A man who flaunts his refusal to learn the context.

  • Depth: "Didn't read the article, but the author is clearly on [club name]'s payroll." Downvotes for the headline, for the author's surname being Chernyavsky, or simply because he's in a bad mood. Proud that his opinion is "unclouded by knowledge and unbiased".

26. The keeper of genre purity Regularly asks: "Is this definitely a sports site?"

  • Depth: Genuinely outraged by articles about footballers' music, films, politics or fashion. Demands that the front page contain only tables and goals. Under an interview with a player about his life he'll write: "Why do I need to know this? Tell me his passing accuracy, the rest is for glamour girls."

27. The peacemaker ("the reasonable fan") That guy who writes: "Respect from a [rival club] fan."

  • Depth: Tries to be "above the fray". Praises the opponent's play, condemns his own side's roughness. Hated equally by his own (for treachery) and by the others (for suspicious friendliness).

28. The lazy reader A man who uses the comments instead of the search bar.

  • Depth: Asks "What was the score?" directly under a post where the score is written on the picture. Asks "Where can I watch?" when the link is in the first sentence of the text. Lives at his own pace.

29. The fan of a random character He has an idol that even the idol doesn't know about.

  • Depth: Supports Khimki's reserve goalkeeper and in every thread argues that he should be starting for the national team. Believes the whole world has conspired against his "underrated genius".

30. The professional sufferer Usually a long-serving fan whose team hasn't won anything since the invention of the wheel.

  • Depth: Enters his club's news like a dentist's surgery. "Why am I watching this? Why don't I support City? Every Sunday is pain." But next Sunday he's back in the stand, with his heart pills and his hope.

31. The mad optimist The sufferer's antithesis. Wears abnormally rose-tinted glasses.

  • Depth: If his team is going down 0:4 in the 85th minute, he'll write: "Never mind, we'll score one now, they'll get nervous, and we'll snatch a draw at the death! Just believe!" Lives in a world where comebacks happen every round.

32. The silent reader The most numerous and mysterious species.

  • Depth: He reads every article, studies all 300 comments in the "Messi vs Ronaldo" thread, but never presses "Send". He gives a silent upvote to the troll, a downvote to the accountant, and goes off into real life. The most mentally healthy person on the site.

Conclusion

You can be anyone: a tactics geek with three monitors or a "war veteran" who remembers Blokhin's goals. But let's admit it: we are all a little bit "silent readers". We enter this digital Colosseum to watch the battle of the titans, to laugh at the latest pun and to silently upvote the person who put our thought better than we could.

The comments are a mirror. And if it seems crooked to you, remember: football in Russia isn't always symmetry and a perfect pitch either. But it's the only one we've got. And there won't be any other commenters either. So cherish your haters — without them Sports.ru would become unbearably quiet.