Napredak will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Crvena Zvezda were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Nair Tiknizyan 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Jay Enem has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
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 Minsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
In brief
SquadFawaz Abdullahi falls out with a teammate over standards
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Slavia Mozyr kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Dinamo Minsk will be asked about the last half hour all week.
“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 Minsk can pretend not to have heard.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Timofey Khomanko has agreed terms with Smorgon for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
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 paperwork is done long before the player is. Alexey Legchilin has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Dinamo Minsk have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Nemanja Radonjić. 2‑0 against OFK Beograd, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Crvena Zvezda, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Nobody at Crvena Zvezda 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.