“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Siauliai have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ibragim Tsallagov 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 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.
Everybody at Siauliai saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 39 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
“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; Siauliai are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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.
Ibragim Tsallagov 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Dāvis Ikaunieks. 3‑1 against Stumbras, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Siauliai pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Kirill Suslov is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
In brief
The dugoutMiloš Zličić is still being punished for one mistake
Ibragim Tsallagov 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.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Siauliai training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kirill Suslov 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Siauliai can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
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 Dāvis Ikaunieks is on it.
The dugout10 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.” Lukas Girdvainis chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
“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 Siauliai, and it is not being withdrawn.
Kristijan Živković 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.
“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 Siauliai know it.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Lukas Girdvainis after 2‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Siauliai this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Lukas Girdvainis after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
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 Georgi Tartov is on it.
30 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Siauliai lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
A 2‑1 win over Suduva, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Aly Traoré could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.21
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.21, 1 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
A brace, and Miloš Zličić takes the afternoon — 9.19
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Miloš Zličić provided it, and the 9.19 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 Siauliai, 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 Siauliai this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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 conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Mickaël Diakota has written the date down.
A new face in his position, and Hérold Goulon suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Siauliai have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Siauliai this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Siauliai will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Slaviša Bogdanović has written the date down.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Enzo Monchatre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.