Marked for Vikintas Jankauskas
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Feb 2031
“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.
Squad10 Feb 2031
A falling-out at Trakai
Rokas Dubickas and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad10 Feb 2031
Lazar Sajčić 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.
Transfer targets10 Feb 2031
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Zalgiris have kept their man, and Trakai go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad10 Feb 2031
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Trakai know which stage they are at.
Squad10 Feb 2031
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Trakai are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
The dugout10 Feb 2031
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Pierluigi Saurini, and the manager let it.
The dugout10 Feb 2031
A promise honoured at Trakai
Something was said to Pierluigi Saurini and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Market10 Feb 2031
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Trakai, another week without a signature from Pierluigi Saurini.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad29 Jul 2030
A fracture rules Rokas Dubickas out for 77 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Trakai will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad29 Jul 2030
28 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.
The dugout29 Jul 2030
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad29 Jul 2030
A falling-out at Trakai
Saulius Dubickas and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad29 Jul 2030
Lazar Sajčić 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.
Transfer targets29 Jul 2030
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout29 Jul 2030
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vykintas Mikoliunas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout29 Jul 2030
Ignas Cernych gets picked when it counts
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 Ignas Cernych is on it.
Market29 Jul 2030
“He is at an age where he has to be playing at the top level. We will listen to anybody.” The representative of Federico Viviani is not being subtle.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Jan 2030
A knee injury of the worst kind for Arnas Valskis
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Trakai lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad7 Jan 2030
A falling-out at Trakai
Saulius Dubickas and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad7 Jan 2030
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Vikintas Jankauskas has, at Trakai, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad7 Jan 2030
Words at Trakai training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lazar Sajčić 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.
Transfer targets7 Jan 2030
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets7 Jan 2030
Zalgiris have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Transfer targets7 Jan 2030
A loan move for Domantas Šimkus is in the works
Trakai have made the call to Zalgiris. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout7 Jan 2030
Marius Dapkus has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Trakai 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 dugout7 Jan 2030
A promise honoured at Trakai
Something was said to Deividas Lasickas and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.