33 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Tulevik can tell you which week it ends in.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Karl Sebastian Puustusmaa was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kevin Anderson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Sergei Kallaste
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 57 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Tulevik can tell you which week it ends in.
Kaupo Kruusmäe 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Joonas Klavan 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.
Something was promised, a deadline passed, and it did not arrive. Trust inside a football club is built over years and spent in an afternoon.
The dugout6 Mar 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Konstantin Marin to a room that had heard them before.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Tulevik will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 The request is on a desk at Tulevik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Robin Murulaid 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 mood at Tulevik has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Position 10 and 1 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tulevik lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Tulevik will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The mood at Tulevik has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The words a physio says slowly. 46 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Tulevik will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Tulevik and Sillamae Kalev have settled on $48.0K. 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Flora have kept their man, and Tulevik go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Kaupo Kruusmäe 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.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at Tulevik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Karl Sebastian Puustusmaa 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.
In brief
The dugoutHendrik Hein knocks on the manager’s door
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Tulevik than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
The registration window is open and the phone has started. Between now and the deadline this club will be linked with forty players and sign three, which is the usual ratio.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Artur Ainsalu was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tulevik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Marek Mets has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Konstantin Marin has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“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 Tulevik, and it is not being withdrawn.
Kaupo Kruusmäe 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Kevin Anderson and Tulevik agree another 1 years.
Squad6 Dec 2027
Words at Tulevik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Karl Sebastian Puustusmaa 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Marek Dmitrijev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Tulevik can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Sergei Vassiljev is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Kevin Anderson 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Words at Tulevik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sander Sappinen 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 squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Artur Ainsalu is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Tulevik would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Konstantin Marin has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Artur Ainsalu has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Riho Domberg 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.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Markus Liivak was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Tulevik, another week without a signature from Riho Domberg.
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Liliu Teniste
Kaupo Kruusmäe 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.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Tulevik will try again when the window opens; Nomme Kalju may not be selling by then.
0‑3 to FCI Tallinn, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tulevik can pretend not to have heard.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout31 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Konstantin Marin to a room that had heard them before.
“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.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Tulevik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rome Veske 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tulevik have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Kevin Anderson 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Kaupo Kruusmäe 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.
The dugout24 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Konstantin Marin chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
“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.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Tulevik training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rome Veske 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 or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Hendrik Kallaste was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Every debut is a small story about the future: Markus Liivak, 15 years old, off the academy pitches and into the first team. The parents in the stand will keep the programme.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tulevik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Rome Veske 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.
Off the academy pitches and onto a senior team sheet at 15. The debut is the easy part; the second appearance is the one every young player has to earn.
Nobody at Tulevik 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 manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tulevik 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.
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.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Tulevik would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
In brief
SquadQuestions about Robin Murulaid on the training pitch
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Marek Puri
Tulevik asked and Nomme Kalju said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tulevik this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Tulevik have made the call to Nomme Kalju. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
29 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tulevik lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Liliu Teniste 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.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tulevik lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Kevin Anderson 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.
In brief
SquadRome Veske falls out with a teammate over standards