Marked for Stanislav Baluk
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad11 Jan 2027
Maxim Grechikha damages knee ligaments — 43 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 43 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Yaroslav Oreshkevich 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 dugout11 Jan 2027
“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.
Market11 Jan 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ilya Selitskiy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
Anton Susha 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 44. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market10 Aug 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Volna Pinsk they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Ilya Rabeshko 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. Ilya Rabeshko has, at Volna Pinsk, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Market10 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Volna Pinsk did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Vitaliy Kibuk, 37, rolls back the years — 7.98
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.98 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Vitaliy Kibuk 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Vadzim Signevich 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Dzmitry Hryshyn is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.