The offer from Siauliai for Marko Capan 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Zalgiris have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Bryan Teixeira and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Grigore Turda 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. MFK Ruzomberok have kept their man, and Zalgiris go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Zalgiris has been clear about where Carlos Olses stands, which is more than many ever get.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Zalgiris can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Zalgiris is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Zalgiris have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Add another name to the list: Utenis have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Yuriy Kendysh. The answer from Zalgiris has not changed — yet.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Zalgiris this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Krylya Sovetov have kept their man, and Zalgiris go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Rokas Paulauskas is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
“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; Zalgiris are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
In brief
The dugoutCarlos Olses asks for a word with the manager
SquadWords at Zalgiris training over how hard people work
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Zalgiris have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Matej Tadič did not need any: 8.10, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
Dominik Franke and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Zalgiris know it.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
In brief
The dugoutCarlos Olses dropped after a run of poor form
The words a physio says slowly. 49 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 know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Skonto had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Zalgiris have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Bryan Teixeira 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nikola Petković was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Zalgiris will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.