Marked for Dmitry Lapin
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad22 May 2028
Denis Polyakov 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.
Match20 May 2028
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.
Player ratings22 May 2028
Successful dribbles: 20. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Match20 May 2028
Minute 94, against Slonim, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
The dugout22 May 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Valeriy Gorbachik, and the manager let it.
The dugout22 May 2028
Andrey Zaleskiy dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Match20 May 2028
A 1‑1 draw with Slonim leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout22 May 2028
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.
The dugout22 May 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Yan Balanovich was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Arsenal Dzerzhinsk dressing room was either.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Jan 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yauhen Chalavach will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Arsenal Dzerzhinsk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Dmitriy Matyash 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
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dmitry Lapin and Arsenal Dzerzhinsk agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad2 Aug 2027
90 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Arsenal Dzerzhinsk lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match28 Jul 2027
A 3‑0 win over BATE, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
Both of them Ilja Vasin's — 8.75
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.75, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Denis Polyakov 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.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The terraces2 Aug 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Daniel Volskiy 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.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
A performance of 8.11 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad2 Aug 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Dmitry Lapin and Arsenal Dzerzhinsk agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
Marked 7.80. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match29 May 2027
16 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Player ratings31 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 35. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Match31 May 2027
22 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad31 May 2027
Denis Polyakov 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 dugout31 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Valeriy Gorbachik, and the manager let it.
The dugout31 May 2027
Something was said to Valeriy Gorbachik and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout31 May 2027
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Yan Balanovich after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Match29 May 2027
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Slonim defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Looking ahead31 May 2027
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Dmitry Lapin’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Arsenal Dzerzhinsk needing him to play as if none of it matters.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom1 Mar 2027
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Arsenal Dzerzhinsk until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Market1 Mar 2027
Osipovichi come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Arsenal Dzerzhinsk did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Denis Polyakov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets1 Mar 2027
Dinamo Minsk wanted more than $160.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vladislav Vasiljev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market1 Mar 2027
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Looking ahead1 Mar 2027
Osipovichi next, and one man in the Arsenal Dzerzhinsk dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Arsenal Dzerzhinsk, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout1 Mar 2027
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Arsenal Dzerzhinsk. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market22 Feb 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Arsenal Dzerzhinsk can pretend not to have heard.
Market22 Feb 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Arsenal Dzerzhinsk is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad22 Feb 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 Arsenal Dzerzhinsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
$230.0K was the most the club would pay and Dinamo Minsk were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Vladislav Vasiljev 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.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Dmitriy Lutik
“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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
No place for Dmitry Lapin in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Arsenal Dzerzhinsk are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
Dmitry Lapin asks for a word with the manager
“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.