Marked for Patrick
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad27 May 2030
The knee: Taaniel Usta out for 21 days
21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Flora lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad27 May 2030
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Player ratings27 May 2030
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.21 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market27 May 2030
Patrick puts it in writing
“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 The request is on a desk at Flora, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings27 May 2030
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Squad27 May 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Flora this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match25 May 2030
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Danil Kuraksin. 3‑1 against Parnu, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad27 May 2030
Words at Flora training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Georgi Tunjov 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.
Player ratings27 May 2030
Ninety minutes of Danil Kuraksin at his very best
Marked 8.63. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Flora.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad20 May 2030
The knee: Taaniel Usta out for 28 days
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Flora lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The dugout20 May 2030
Patrick: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Flora have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market20 May 2030
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Flora they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad20 May 2030
Tempers go at Flora
Tristan Toomas Teeväli 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.
Squad20 May 2030
A row about effort at Flora
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Georgi Tunjov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad20 May 2030
Home is on Patrick's mind
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Flora are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Boardroom20 May 2030
Wages swallow 91% of the Flora income
Every club 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 it has been tried.
The dugout20 May 2030
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Rauno Sappinen is on it.
The dugout20 May 2030
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Joonas Hein chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad1 Apr 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Artem Perepechko
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Flora lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match30 Mar 2030
4‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Match30 Mar 2030
Flora cannot stop winning
7 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad1 Apr 2030
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Squad1 Apr 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Flora this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match30 Mar 2030
The run at home goes on for Flora
9 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad1 Apr 2030
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Balagie Darboe commits to Flora for another 4 years.
Player ratings1 Apr 2030
Marked 8.50 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings1 Apr 2030
Ninety minutes of Mark Anders Lepik at his very best
Marked 8.46. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Flora.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad18 Mar 2030
Artem Perepechko damages knee ligaments — 56 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 56 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.
Match16 Mar 2030
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Nomme Kalju, and it could have been more.
Match16 Mar 2030
Flora make it 5 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Flora have 5 straight wins of it.
Player ratings18 Mar 2030
7.73, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Market18 Mar 2030
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alexandr Selyava will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Flora the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad18 Mar 2030
Georgi Tunjov falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Squad18 Mar 2030
A falling-out at Flora
Mark Anders Lepik and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match16 Mar 2030
Nobody wins at Flora
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Player ratings18 Mar 2030
Georgi Tunjov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.40. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Jan 2030
Artem Perepechko damages knee ligaments — 114 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 114 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.
Market21 Jan 2030
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Market21 Jan 2030
Paide come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Flora did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market21 Jan 2030
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Flora they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad21 Jan 2030
Tempers go at Flora
Tristan Toomas Teeväli 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.
Squad21 Jan 2030
Georgi Tunjov falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Squad21 Jan 2030
Patrick wants to go home
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Flora can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout21 Jan 2030
Kaur Kivila has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Flora 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.
Market21 Jan 2030
Tulevik are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Flora will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Nov 2029
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Flora lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad26 Nov 2029
Tempers go at Flora
Tristan Toomas Teeväli 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.
Squad26 Nov 2029
18 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad26 Nov 2029
Georgi Tunjov falls out with a teammate over standards
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 dugout26 Nov 2029
When it matters, Kaur Kivila plays
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.
The dugout26 Nov 2029
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alexey Shalashnikov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
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Market
Experience through the door at Flora
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The dugout
Vladislav Lyakh keeps his manager's vote
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Boardroom
Flora board back the manager