Marked for Egor Rusakov
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad2 Jul 2029
24 goals and a season average of 7.68. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Market2 Jul 2029
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around BATE people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Player ratings2 Jul 2029
Two goals and a mark of 9.06 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The dugout2 Jul 2029
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” BATE may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market2 Jul 2029
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Mikalai Klimovich had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Market2 Jul 2029
“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.
Market2 Jul 2029
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at BATE heard it as anything else.
Match30 Jun 2029
BATE make it 3 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now BATE have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad2 Jul 2029
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Alexandr Zhirov commits to BATE for another 2 years.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match30 May 2029
BATE march on in the cup
Belshina are out and BATE go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match30 May 2029
The 85th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Arseniy Migdalenok decided nobody was going anywhere. Belshina had no time left to answer.
Squad4 Jun 2029
Jacques Siwe is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.55 with 17 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Market4 Jun 2029
“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.
Market4 Jun 2029
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around BATE they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad4 Jun 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at BATE this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match2 Jun 2029
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The terraces4 Jun 2029
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings4 Jun 2029
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 May 2029
“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.
The dugout7 May 2029
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad7 May 2029
Defences have started doubling up on Jacques Siwe
13 goals and a season average of 7.46 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Market7 May 2029
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nikolay Mirskiy will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around BATE the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad7 May 2029
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Yuriy Kovalev and BATE agree another 2 years.
Squad7 May 2029
Tempers go at BATE
Yuriy Kovalev 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.
Squad7 May 2029
Alexandr Zhirov 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.
Match5 May 2029
Three points for BATE, 1‑0 the final word against Isloch in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Looking ahead7 May 2029
The big one: Dinamo Brest come into view
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. BATE will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad9 Apr 2029
A knee injury of the worst kind for Daniil Prokopchuk
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. BATE lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market9 Apr 2029
Egor Rusakov hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what BATE can pretend not to have heard.
Market9 Apr 2029
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around BATE they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Tempers go at BATE
Yuriy Kovalev 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.
Match7 Apr 2029
Still nobody has beaten BATE
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad9 Apr 2029
A row about effort at BATE
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexandr Zhirov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings9 Apr 2029
Successful dribbles: 20. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match7 Apr 2029
BATE keep winning on the road
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Match7 Apr 2029
Three points for BATE, 1‑0 the final word against Vitebsk in a contest settled by the finer margins.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Mar 2029
Daniil Prokopchuk damages knee ligaments — 72 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 72 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.
Market12 Mar 2029
Egor Rusakov hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what BATE can pretend not to have heard.
Market12 Mar 2029
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nikolay Mirskiy will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around BATE the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings12 Mar 2029
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad12 Mar 2029
Tempers go at BATE
Yuriy Kovalev 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.
Transfer targets12 Mar 2029
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.
Match10 Mar 2029
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Žiga Pečjak. 2‑0 against Minsk, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings12 Mar 2029
Jacques Siwe was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.57. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings12 Mar 2029
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.10, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match7 Aug 2028
BATE up to position 2
49 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market7 Aug 2028
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. BATE have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Jacques Siwe is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.50 with 21 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Player ratings7 Aug 2028
Age has not caught Yuriy Kovalev yet — 8.04
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.04 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market7 Aug 2028
“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 BATE, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets7 Aug 2028
BATE have gone to Dinamo Minsk with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Market7 Aug 2028
Maxim Telesh has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around BATE they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market7 Aug 2028
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Transfer targets7 Aug 2028
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. BATE have done the hard part with DAC Dunajska Streda, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
In brief
-
Match
Another one collected away from home
-
Squad
Žiga Pečjak is a better footballer than he was
-
Squad
A falling-out at BATE
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Jun 2028
71 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. BATE lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match31 May 2028
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Viktar Sivakov obliged against Slutsk. 3‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is BATE.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Alexey Amelin breaks a bone — 32 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad5 Jun 2028
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market5 Jun 2028
BATE say no — this time
The offer from Liepaja for Danila Slesarchuk 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.
Market5 Jun 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alexandr Shvedchikov will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around BATE the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings5 Jun 2028
Viktar Sivakov was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.83. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The terraces5 Jun 2028
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.