Timur Pukhov 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 Dec 2026
Words at Baranovichi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maksym Shevchenko 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Baranovichi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Timur Pukhov and Baranovichi agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Baranovichi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Timur Pukhov 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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Aldiiar Ältaev is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
1 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Baranovichi could ask drops and the wages Vasiliy Vasilenko can ask rise.
Nobody at Baranovichi 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Baranovichi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The instruction came from the boardroom and the dugout did not agree with it. Somebody will go, the fee will be called good business, and the manager will spend the season rebuilding around the space.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Baranovichi 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Martin Artyukh trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
1 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Baranovichi could ask drops and the wages Denis Shpakovskiy can ask rise.
Nobody at Baranovichi 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 Baranovichi 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 Baranovichi this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Baranovichi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Timur Pukhov 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.
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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Mikhail Bondarenko is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Baranovichi, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Baranovichi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Baranovichi can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 16 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at Baranovichi until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Timur Pukhov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Volna Pinsk have kept their man, and Baranovichi go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Baranovichi will try again when the window opens; Luki-Energiya may not be selling by then.
14 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Baranovichi is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Baranovichi people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Baranovichi and Luki-Energiya have settled on $160.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Timur Pukhov has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Baranovichi 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.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Vadim Balbukh has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Neman go through and Baranovichi go home, 0‑5 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
0-5, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Maksym Shevchenko has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Baranovichi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Egor Lapun 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.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Baranovichi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Timur Pukhov 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.
Baranovichi asked and Volna Pinsk said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Ruslan Gogniev
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Baranovichi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The offer from Vitebsk for Maksym Shevchenko 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.
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.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Dmitriy Fedortsov is a Baranovichi player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Baranovichi training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vadim Balbukh 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.55 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Baranovichi they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Baranovichi have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Artem Petrenko has agreed terms with Dinamo Minsk for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Timur Pukhov 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ihar Arlouski is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Vitaliy Volodko has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.