28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dinamo Brest lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Alexandr Lomakin 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.
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Dinamo Brest 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 Dinamo Brest this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Dinamo Brest, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daniil Chernyavskiy will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Dinamo Brest the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Denis Grechikho 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Dinamo Brest, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Dinamo Brest 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 Dinamo Brest they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Dinamo Brest 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 Dinamo Brest 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 Dinamo Brest this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadDavid Espínola falls out with a teammate over standards
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Brest they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Dinamo Brest training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. David Espínola 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.
At 21 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.
Denis Grechikho 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Dinamo Brest 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dinamo Brest they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dinamo Brest can pretend not to have heard.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dinamo Brest this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Dinamo Brest training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mikhail Bondarenko 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.
19 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.