Marked for Šimon Slončík
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Jan 2027
72 days out for Dajan Ponjević after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Utenis will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
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.
Squad18 Jan 2027
A row about effort at Utenis
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Šimon Slončík was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Jan 2027
86 days out for Dajan Ponjević after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Utenis will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market4 Jan 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad4 Jan 2027
A row about effort at Utenis
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Šimon Slončík was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad4 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utenis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
Kauno Zalgiris have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
Utenis have made the call to Kauno Zalgiris. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Dec 2026
94 days out for Dajan Ponjević after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Utenis will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Utenis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Šimon Slončík 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Tempers go at Utenis
Karolis Kuklys 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Dec 2026
A fracture rules Dajan Ponjević out for 108 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Utenis will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad14 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Linas Dubickas
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Utenis lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Nuno Sousa is 17, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Dec 2026
Dajan Ponjević breaks a bone — 115 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 115 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Linas Dubickas damages knee ligaments — 30 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Utenis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Šimon Slončík 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Nov 2026
Dajan Ponjević breaks a bone — 129 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 129 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad23 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utenis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Nov 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Šimon Slončík and Utenis agree another 3 years.
In brief
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Squad
A row about effort at Utenis
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Nov 2026
Dajan Ponjević breaks a bone — 136 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 136 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Šimon Slončík arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Šimon Slončík has, at Utenis, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad16 Nov 2026
33 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad16 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Utenis
Karolis Kuklys and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market16 Nov 2026
He is 19, and nobody at Utenis signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Andrius Satkus
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.