The offer from Belshina for Anatoliy Yarmolich was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at BATE is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
24 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.
Cheick Oumar Souaré 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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Kirill Leonovich has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means BATE have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Add another name to the list: Smorgon have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Vladislav Ignatjev. The answer from BATE has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maxim Telesh 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. Ilya Raschenya will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around BATE the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Gor Mahia did not want to sell and the number is why they did. $1.5M for Alpha Onyango, and the expectation that arrives with him is the kind no amount of settling-in period softens.
The name of Vladislav Yatskevich has come up in conversations BATE were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Neman will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Alexey Shalashnikov has pre-agreed a move to BATE, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at BATE this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
40 per cent sure, said the file that landed on the director's desk. Liepaja let him go, BATE did not hesitate, and the scouting department has earned the right to a smug fortnight.
The words a physio says slowly. 81 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.
$1.5M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
He is going to BATE, the club has $1.5M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gor Mahia can pretend not to have heard.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. AFC Leopards moved on, George Amonoo reports back to Gor Mahia, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
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 words a physio says slowly. 88 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gor Mahia can pretend not to have heard.
The deal that would have taken Mark Shaban to Mara Sugar has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Gor Mahia with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Defensive actions: 22. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Frank Odhiambo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.17. 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.
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.
Shariff Musa damages knee ligaments — 102 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 102 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.
The offer from KCB for Giscard Mavoungou was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Alpha Onyango 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 23 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.
41 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gor Mahia lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 7 of the 30 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A first appearance Mark Shaban will want to forget — 5.78
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.78, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Alpha Onyango 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Shariff Musa 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.
“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 Gor Mahia, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gor Mahia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Marked 8.17 — 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Gor Mahia, another week without a signature from Gad Mathews.
49 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.