It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sillamae Kalev this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every Sillamae Kalev game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Levadia runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Sillamae Kalev training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joonas Puri 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.
Words at Sillamae Kalev training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Douglas Dias 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sillamae Kalev this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 38 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
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.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Levadia the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
In brief
SquadThe training reports on Taijo Teniste are not good
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sillamae Kalev this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every Sillamae Kalev game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Levadia runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mihkel Vassiljev trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Levadia asked and Sillamae Kalev said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Levadia that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
$460.0K on the table at Flora. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Levadia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mikhail Sivakov 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Neman have kept their man, and Levadia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Rauno Mets left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Levadia is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Off the academy pitches and onto a senior team sheet at 19. The debut is the easy part; the second appearance is the one every young player has to earn.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Sillamae Kalev keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Mikhail Sivakov 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Levadia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandr Karnitskiy 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Levadia are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Levadia know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
A season-long audition: Sillamae Kalev still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Levadia's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Nikita Sednev has just signed for Levadia, and for once the answer mattered.
The shirt still fits. Mihkel Ainsalu is back at Levadia, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Levadia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Levadia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mikhail Sivakov 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.
Levadia have made the call to Sillamae Kalev. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
A loan enquiry to Sillamae Kalev: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.