The words a physio says slowly. 111 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 112 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Trakai this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 118 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 119 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Position 7 and 14 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Darluis Paz 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Tadas Barauskas has just signed for Trakai, and for once the answer mattered.
The phone has started ringing about Vikintas Mikoliunas again, and this time the name on the line is Utenis. Trakai are listening politely and promising nothing.
The words a physio says slowly. 63 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Utenis will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Niklas Determann 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Utenis, and 0 appearances in 37 say he has earned the hearing.
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Utenis could ask drops and the wages Rokas Klimavicius can ask rise.