21
Edition
The Utenis Chronicle
21 Dec 2026
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Dec 2026
The knee: Timur Zhirkov out for 161 days
161 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Utenis lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
Arnas Mikoliunas has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Utenis will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
Karolis Slavickas knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Karolis Slavickas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
- Squad Mihail Gherasimencov has settled at Utenis
- Squad Welcome back, Frank Lookman