Marked for Karolis Dubickas
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout22 Mar 2027
“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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Market22 Mar 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Trakai is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match20 Mar 2027
No end in sight to Trakai's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Trakai has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad22 Mar 2027
A falling-out at Trakai
Daniele Montevago and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Marked 8.04 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad22 Mar 2027
5 new faces, and Trakai are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Match20 Mar 2027
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Nov 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 Trakai this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Loan watch9 Nov 2026
“I did not go to Utenis to sit and watch. I want to come back to Trakai and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Deividas Mikoliunas 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 4 signed and 3 gone
That is the business done at Trakai until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Market7 Sep 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 Trakai, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Slavia Prague is saying, and nobody at Trakai is enjoying the guessing.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Trakai
Daniele Montevago and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Trakai asked and Levski said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Karolis Dubickas is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Trakai training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Deividas Mikoliunas 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Trakai than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Donatas Lasickas commits to Trakai for another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Trakai
Besar Halimi 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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Trakai asked and Koper said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Tadas Vaitkunas 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Utenis have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Darius Kuklys. The answer from Trakai has not changed — yet.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Besar Halimi has outgrown this division
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Trakai know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Atlantas 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.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Donatas Lasickas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.