Marked for Karolis Barauskas
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match23 Mar 2030
21 matches without a win for Trakai
The run now stands at 21, and the questions being asked around Trakai are no longer polite ones.
Squad25 Mar 2030
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market25 Mar 2030
“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.
Squad25 Mar 2030
A row about effort at Trakai
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edvinas Satkus was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match23 Mar 2030
Atlantas left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout25 Mar 2030
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad25 Mar 2030
At 23 nothing has moved for months. Not backwards, which would at least be a conversation — simply nowhere, and somebody at the club has to decide whose fault that is.
Player ratings25 Mar 2030
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout25 Mar 2030
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market3 Dec 2029
“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 The request is on a desk at Trakai, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad3 Dec 2029
Edvinas Satkus 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.
Squad3 Dec 2029
A falling-out at Trakai
Edvinas Vaitkunas and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Dec 2029
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Karolis Barauskas has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Squad3 Dec 2029
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Edvinas Vaitkunas has moved up it.
The dugout3 Dec 2029
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
Crisis
Match17 Sep 2029
Every point is an argument now for Trakai
Position 8 and 4 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.
Squad17 Sep 2029
77 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Trakai lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Boardroom17 Sep 2029
Pressure builds in the Trakai boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad17 Sep 2029
A row about effort at Trakai
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Edvinas Satkus was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout17 Sep 2029
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.
Market17 Sep 2029
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Trakai know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom23 Oct 2028
Pressure builds in the Trakai boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market23 Oct 2028
“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.
Market23 Oct 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Edvinas Vaitkunas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Trakai the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Words at Trakai training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edvinas Satkus 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.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Words exchanged at Trakai
Henri Sulovari 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 dugout23 Oct 2028
Fiodor Novikovas 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.