Marked for Ignas Eliosius
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market21 Jun 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Atlantas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 41 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market21 Jun 2027
The fee is $410.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Stumbras drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Squad21 Jun 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 Atlantas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces21 Jun 2027
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Modestas Kuklys from Stumbras for $410.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words at Atlantas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Torres 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match5 Jun 2027
The wait goes on for Atlantas
16 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Market7 Jun 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings7 Jun 2027
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 55 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom7 Jun 2027
Pressure builds in the Atlantas boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market7 Jun 2027
The name of Arnas Paulauskas has come up in conversations Atlantas were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad7 Jun 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 Atlantas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Jun 2027
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Simas Venckevičius is living that version at Atlantas, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at Atlantas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexis Torres 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Apr 2027
Georgi Tartov damages knee ligaments — 18 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
Squad5 Apr 2027
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match31 Mar 2027
The cup run ends for Atlantas
0‑2 against Kauno Zalgiris, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Match5 Apr 2027
Atlantas are in real trouble now
Position 6, 3 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Match3 Apr 2027
7 matches without a win for Atlantas
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Atlantas are no longer polite ones.
Squad5 Apr 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 Atlantas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match31 Mar 2027
Cup progress for Trakai
A 1‑0 win over Siauliai, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match3 Apr 2027
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Étienne Camara scored in the 89th minute, Utenis had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Trakai took the lot.
Match31 Mar 2027
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 85th, and Siauliai spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Ignas Eliosius: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Trakai have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Tempers go at Trakai
Arnas Kazlauskas 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.
Match3 Apr 2027
6 unbeaten for Trakai
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Trakai did not have in the autumn.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at Trakai training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Étienne Camara 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 terraces5 Apr 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Aidas Vaitkunas 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 51. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad8 Mar 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Georgi Tartov
47 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atlantas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 24 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market8 Mar 2027
Georgi Tartov hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Atlantas can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
A brace, and Fiodor Simkus takes the afternoon — 8.51
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Fiodor Simkus provided it, and the 8.51 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Alexis Torres and Atlantas agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 Mar 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 Atlantas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
Graduation day at Atlantas
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Market8 Mar 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Arnas Vaitkunas 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Feb 2027
Georgi Tartov damages knee ligaments — 83 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 83 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 59 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Anton Tolordava 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market1 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 Trakai can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Feb 2027
José Acosta in a row with a teammate
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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Étienne Camara 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
This league is too small for Colin Andrew
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Trakai will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Squad1 Feb 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad25 Jan 2027
Georgi Tartov damages knee ligaments — 90 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 90 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 66 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market25 Jan 2027
“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 Atlantas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad25 Jan 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 Atlantas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market25 Jan 2027
Add another name to the list: Trakai have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ignas Eliosius. The answer from Atlantas has not changed — yet.
Squad25 Jan 2027
“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 Atlantas know it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlantas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
27 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ignas Eliosius
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atlantas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Arnas Paulauskas 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ignas Eliosius
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atlantas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market31 Aug 2026
“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 Atlantas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Georgi Tartov 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad24 Aug 2026
Ignas Eliosius damages knee ligaments — 29 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 29 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Atlantas can pretend not to have heard.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlantas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.