“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 The request is on a desk at Volna Pinsk, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Volna Pinsk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Nobody at Volna Pinsk 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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Words at Volna Pinsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pavel Kuznetsov 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Pejman Ghoddos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Volna Pinsk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Volna Pinsk can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Volna Pinsk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Yaroslav Oreshkevich 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.
Add another name to the list: Bumprom Gomel have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Artem Polshakov. The answer from Volna Pinsk has not changed — yet.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
In brief
SquadLeon Myrtaj has become a man the manager trusts
“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 Volna Pinsk, and it is not being withdrawn.
The terraces7 Aug 2028
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 11 of the 24 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dmitriy Nizhnik will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Volna Pinsk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
The phone has started ringing about Andrei Hleb again, and this time the name on the line is Ostrovets. Volna Pinsk are listening politely and promising nothing.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Volna Pinsk, another week without a signature from Leon Myrtaj.
“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 Volna Pinsk, and 1 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
In brief
SquadA place in the month's best eleven for Patrik Farkas
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Egor Nikoporenok obliged against Vitebsk. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Volna Pinsk.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Volna Pinsk can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Stanislav Baluk will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Volna Pinsk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The name of Artem Polshakov has come up in conversations Volna Pinsk were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dmitriy Nizhnik will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Volna Pinsk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Leon Myrtaj 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.
The phone has started ringing about Artem Polshakov again, and this time the name on the line is Orsha. Volna Pinsk are listening politely and promising nothing.
Nobody at Volna Pinsk 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Volna Pinsk training over how hard people work
SquadArtem Vlasov asks for a word with the manager
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Stanislav Baluk will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Volna Pinsk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Yaroslav Oreshkevich and Volna Pinsk agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Yaroslav Oreshkevich 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 shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Volna Pinsk can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings12 Jun 2028
Leon Myrtaj, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.56
A mark of 8.56 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dmitriy Nizhnik will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Volna Pinsk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.90 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
A 3‑1 win over Bumprom Gomel, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Thodoris Fanourakis 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 at Volna Pinsk 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.
In brief
SquadWords at Volna Pinsk training over how hard people work
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Leon Myrtaj obliged against Torpedo-BelAZ. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Volna Pinsk.
“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 Volna Pinsk, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Volna Pinsk they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Leon Myrtaj did not need any: 7.74, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
At 20 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dmitriy Nizhnik will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Volna Pinsk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Volna Pinsk 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 Patrik Farkas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Volna Pinsk they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Egor Nikoporenok 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 at Volna Pinsk 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.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Words at Volna Pinsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pavel Kuznetsov 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.
Marked 5.77. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Stanislav Letsko: 4 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Volna Pinsk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Stanislav Baluk will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Volna Pinsk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The terraces10 Apr 2028
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 7 of the 26 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Leon Myrtaj did not need any: 7.88, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Yaroslav Oreshkevich 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 20 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.
45 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Volna Pinsk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Volna Pinsk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Leon Myrtaj 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Egor Nikoporenok trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
87 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Volna Pinsk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Yaroslav Oreshkevich 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Add another name to the list: Ostrovets have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Artem Polshakov. The answer from Volna Pinsk has not changed — yet.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Gomel will make the call about Dmitriy Nizhnik this week. Volna Pinsk have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The words a physio says slowly. 115 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.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Volna Pinsk have had the benefit of it.
Egor Nikoporenok 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.
71 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Volna Pinsk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
78 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Volna Pinsk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Volna Pinsk will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
120 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Volna Pinsk lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Yaroslav Oreshkevich 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.
Yaroslav Oreshkevich 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.
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.
Position 3, 39 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Volna Pinsk they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Lokomotiv Gomel moved on, Arseniy Asonov reports back to Volna Pinsk, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Getting past Stanislav Letsko has become the hardest job in the division
15 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Kirill Kovalevich 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.
“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 Volna Pinsk, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Volna Pinsk they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yegor Iljashenko will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Volna Pinsk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Yaroslav Oreshkevich 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 easiest signature of my career.” Vladyslav Hevlych and Volna Pinsk agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Volna Pinsk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Vladyslav Hevlych and Volna Pinsk agree another 2 years.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Volna Pinsk has been clear about where Andrey Agapov stands, which is more than many ever get.
12 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Patrik Farkas did not need any: 8.30, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 25 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Yaroslav Oreshkevich 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.
At 20 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Volna Pinsk now.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Words at Volna Pinsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladislav Pulkach 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.
Boardroom19 Jul 2027
127% of the income goes out in wages at Volna Pinsk
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Nobody at Volna Pinsk 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yegor Iljashenko will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Volna Pinsk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Yaroslav Oreshkevich 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.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Volna Pinsk pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Uni-X Labs will make the call about Arseniy Asonov this week. Volna Pinsk have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The name of Arseniy Asonov has come up in conversations Volna Pinsk were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
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.
Patrik Farkas, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.04
A mark of 8.04 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Patrik Farkas 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Nobody at Volna Pinsk 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 Kirill Kovalevich trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at Volna Pinsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladislav Pulkach 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Volna Pinsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladislav Pulkach 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 is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad24 May 2027
Getting past Stanislav Letsko has become the hardest job in the division
8 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Molodechno defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Patrik Farkas, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.14
A mark of 8.14 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.
Vladislav Pulkach 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Patrik Farkas 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.
Nobody at Volna Pinsk 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.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Volna Pinsk have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Position 3, 15 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Yaroslav Oreshkevich 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.
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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Yaroslav Oreshkevich 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Egor Nikoporenok has his answer from Volna Pinsk; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Baranovichi? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Mateush Montevka obliged against Smorgon. 2‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Volna Pinsk.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Mateush Montevka, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.05
A mark of 8.05 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Volna Pinsk have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.91 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at Volna Pinsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladislav Pulkach 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Volna Pinsk has been clear about where Stanislav Letsko stands, which is more than many ever get.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Volna Pinsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pavel Kuznetsov 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.
Yaroslav Oreshkevich 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
5 new faces, and Volna Pinsk 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Volna Pinsk can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at Volna Pinsk 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Volna Pinsk training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pavel Kuznetsov 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.
Nobody at Volna Pinsk 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Volna Pinsk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Volna Pinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Volna Pinsk will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Volna Pinsk they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Vitaliy Kibuk 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Volna Pinsk will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Volna Pinsk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Kirill Kovalevich and Volna Pinsk agree another 4 years.
In brief
SquadWords at Volna Pinsk training over how hard people work