The funniest part: before the national team's match in Kaliningrad my son and I bought two caps in the fan shop. Just because. Black with red, an eagle, the number 22 on the peak. Almost no intent behind it; we liked them, we bought them.

And number 22 that evening was Beveev.

When he scored and the stands were flung into the air, we stood there in those caps and looked at each other. How on earth. As if we knew.

The lad nobody believed in

Beveev is from the Kalmyk village of Verkhny Yashkul. A small place, an ordinary pitch, the same sort of lads all around. And among them, he was the one who was not considered a talent. Not at all. His first coach actually told his brother that Mingiyan was "the least gifted", and what followed was even blunter.

Imagine a kid being told to his face that nothing will come of him. Some people hang up their boots after that. He remembered it. Not to get revenge, but to prove it wrong. To himself first.

But he holds no grudge over that story. On the contrary, he thanks that coach: the man worked for peanuts and got up before dawn for other people's kids. No anger. Gratitude.

That's where it all started. If talent wasn't handed out, we'll take it another way. With character. By getting up earlier and grafting longer.

"Crawled"

Nosta. Ural's reserves. KAMAZ. Yenisey. Ural again.

This is not a rocket's career. This is ten years of buses, warm-ups and matches nobody broadcasts. Beveev himself later put it better than anyone: he didn't walk to the national team, he crawled.

And he might never have made it. At 16 he was already living alone in Astrakhan. Alone, at an age when at home someone still wakes you up for school. No supervision, heaps of free time and a hundred temptations to give it all up. He later admitted honestly that the temptations were there. But somewhere inside that stubborn thing was already sitting: I want to play, full stop.

So he kept going. Without big transfers, without wonderkid status. Just doing his job every day, in towns whose names RPL fans usually can't even recall.

A grafter you can lean on

In the summer of 2025 Baltika took him. And the other day extended his contract, to 2028.

In numbers he is now almost irreplaceable: 28 matches, all from the first minute, more than 2,300 minutes, 2+1 in goals plus assists. But that's not the point.

Beveev is about volume. Touches, duels, 137 duels won, a heap of unpleasant work the stands usually don't notice. And, pay attention, zero errors leading to a shot or a goal. Zero. This is no "creative full-back"; this is a grafter you can lean on.

The trick they love him for

And he has a weapon. Throw-ins.

On paper it sounds funny. On the pitch, not at all: by his own account, around 10% of all Baltika's goals this season have come from his throws. They rehearse them specially in training.

He himself talks about it in a way that makes you want to hug him:

"I'm not bad with my hands, better than with my feet. For now I'm getting by on my hands."

And he adds that Samoshnikov still throws further. And once, when he wasn't given a dry ball during a game, he brought his own towel to the next one. And it worked.

One of our own, from Kalmykia

Here the story stops being just about football and becomes about a person.

Verkhny Yashkul is the steppe, it's Kalmykia. A region that in its entire history had never given the country a national team player. Never. Until October 2025.

When Karpin read out his name, it seems everyone back home exhaled at once. "Everyone from Kalmykia is writing, congratulating me," Beveev said. And with it, no crown: he doesn't consider himself a star in the republic. About himself he said simply: "I was born in Kalmykia, and that is Russia."

In his teams he's been called "Jackie Chan" and "the Kalmyk Maradona". Dressing-room jokes that also contain the whole long road: first nobody believes in you, then they rib you, then the whole country knows your name.

He shows almost nothing of his private life: all that's known is that his wife is from Elista. And that's his style too: no shop window, no showing off. Just a lad who quietly did his job for many years.

Talalaev put it more precisely: Beveev is an example for children from the furthest corners of Russia. And that isn't just a pretty phrase. He regularly goes back to Kalmykia, runs masterclasses for the boys of Uralan and shows them a simple thing: if someone once told you "it won't work out", that still means nothing.

The goal against Trinidad was greeted there like a holiday. One of their own had scored. For the national team.

Two minutes and a rating of 8.2

His debut was two minutes against Iran. Two. But after ten years on the road, those two minutes are worth more than many a ninety.

And then, six months later, came that evening: Trinidad and Tobago, 81 minutes on the pitch, 89% pass accuracy, a rating of 8.2, the best in the national team. And a goal. A standing ovation from the stands when he was substituted.

And he didn't get carried away. He said exactly what a grafter would say: I came on, I played, I didn't let anyone down, and let the coach do the judging.

That's what you love him for. Not for beauty, but for the honesty of the road.

For ten years he was almost invisible to big football. And then he found himself at the centre of an evening after which an entire stadium in Kaliningrad chanted his name.

And at home we have two caps with the number 22. As a keepsake. As if we knew…

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