Marked for Rokas Paulauskas
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 May 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Angusht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Billy Phillips, and the manager let it.
Squad17 May 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Angusht, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match5 Apr 2027
Angusht up to position 3
41 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad5 Apr 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Angusht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Apr 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dorian Fanni, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom29 Mar 2027
Wages eat 89% of everything Angusht earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad29 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sharip Yusupov, and the manager let it.
Squad29 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Angusht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Angusht this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market22 Mar 2027
At 35, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Evgeny Kim knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Angusht, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad15 Mar 2027
Karolis Simkus damages knee ligaments — 40 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 40 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad15 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Utenis this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Marko Capan 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.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Marked 8.26 — 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.
Loan watch15 Mar 2027
“I watch every Utenis game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Kauno Zalgiris runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Match13 Mar 2027
It needed Valdas Paulauskas to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Siauliai, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Market15 Mar 2027
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Utenis, another week without a signature from Vladyslav Hevlych.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad2 Nov 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Edvinas Paulauskas and Utenis agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Utenis training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Valdas Paulauskas 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.