“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 The request is on a desk at Dnepr Mogilev, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dnepr Mogilev this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Words at Dnepr Mogilev training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kirill Tsepenkov 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.
8.05. 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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
6 new faces, and Dnepr Mogilev are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“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 The request is on a desk at Dnepr Mogilev, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Dnepr Mogilev have made the call to BATE. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Vadzim Shikavka after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Vadim Galko will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Dnepr Mogilev escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Everything agreed with Slavia Mozyr, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Dnepr Mogilev have gone to Lokomotiv Gomel 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dnepr Mogilev this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A performance of 8.27 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Words at Dnepr Mogilev training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladislav Tarasenko 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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Vadzim Shikavka after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at Dnepr Mogilev training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kirill Tsepenkov 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. Dmitriy Lisakovich is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The dugout3 Jul 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Vadzim Shikavka left the room before anybody could ask which.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
Andrey Potapenko 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniil Zhabrakov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Vadzim Shikavka on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Kristaps Ikaunieks has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Kristaps Ikaunieks in the middle of it, and Slavia Mozyr unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kirill Tsepenkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Andrey Potapenko 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
BATE next, and one man in the Dnepr Mogilev dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Kirill Kirilenko 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kirill Tsepenkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout27 Mar 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Erik Torosyan's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
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.
Isloch next, and one man in the Dnepr Mogilev dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
This is not rotation. Kirill Kirilenko has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Dnepr Mogilev is pretending otherwise.
Boardroom28 Feb 2028
Dnepr Mogilev close the window on a squad of their own making
3 in and 0 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Minsk have kept their man, and Dnepr Mogilev go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at Dnepr Mogilev training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dmitriy Guschenko 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.
Andrey Potapenko 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.
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
Erik Torosyan is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dnepr Mogilev can pretend not to have heard.
The deal with Dinamo Brest is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Kirill Kirilenko 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 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.
Dnepr Mogilev asked and Dinamo Minsk said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Dinamo Minsk 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dmitriy Lisakovich trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Vadzim Shikavka has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Yegor Belyaev has just signed for Dnepr Mogilev, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kirill Tsepenkov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Dnepr Mogilev know it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
The dugout3 Jan 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Erik Torosyan's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Yegor Belyaev is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Dnepr Mogilev can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Dnepr Mogilev they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Dnepr Mogilev 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.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Kirill Kirilenko's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Erik Torosyan's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Dnepr Mogilev, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dnepr Mogilev is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Egor Karpitskiy 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrey Potapenko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout8 Nov 2027
Erik Torosyan is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dnepr Mogilev know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Artem Varganov is on it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dnepr Mogilev is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Dnepr Mogilev are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Dmitriy Lisakovich was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Alexey Shashkun and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
Erik Torosyan is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Kirill Kirilenko’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Dnepr Mogilev needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Dnepr Mogilev, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Dnepr Mogilev know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nobody at Dnepr Mogilev 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Dnepr Mogilev can pretend not to have heard.
Egor Karpitskiy 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Dinamo Brest have kept their man, and Dnepr Mogilev go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Dnepr Mogilev have made the call to Dinamo Brest. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Vladislav Stepanenko has come out of that comparison in the side, and Dnepr Mogilev have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dmitriy Lisakovich trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Vladislav Tarasenko 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.
At 23 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrey Potapenko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Vadzim Shikavka after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dnepr Mogilev is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Dnepr Mogilev are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Dnepr Mogilev asked and Neman said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad9 Aug 2027
Maxim Kasarab 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Dnepr Mogilev have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Egor Karpitskiy 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.
13 combined actions and 7.33. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Maxim Kasarab was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Kirill Zabelin. 2‑1 against Smorgon, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
8.07. 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.
A 3‑1 win over Arsenal Dzerzhinsk, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Arsenal Dzerzhinsk tried to reorganise, Dnepr Mogilev did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Dnepr Mogilev training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrey Potapenko 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.
Pavel Sedich 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.
Kirill Kirilenko 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.
0‑2 to BATE, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Dnepr Mogilev training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrey Potapenko 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.
“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.
The dugout3 May 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Vadzim Shikavka left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Erik Torosyan is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Two goals and a mark of 8.79 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Dnepr Mogilev is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Andrey Potapenko was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Dnepr Mogilev know it.
Egor Karpitskiy and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Dnepr Mogilev training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Andrey Potapenko 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.