Marked for Maksim Martynovich
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad17 May 2027
Aliaksandr Bykau damages knee ligaments — 36 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 36 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.
Match15 May 2027
Nobody wants to play Lokomotiv Gomel right now
7 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Player ratings17 May 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.36, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market17 May 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lokomotiv Gomel is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad17 May 2027
17 goals and a season average of 7.50. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
The terraces17 May 2027
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Player ratings17 May 2027
A performance of 8.45 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Lokomotiv Gomel training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mikalai Kendysh 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market29 Mar 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Andrei Martynovich will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiv Gomel the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Lokomotiv Gomel training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergei Kavalyou 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Sergei Savitski and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
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 Yakov Zheleznov is on it.
Market29 Mar 2027
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Sergei Kavalyou may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad25 Jan 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 Lokomotiv Gomel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sergei Kavalyou was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
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 Ihar Klimovich is on it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dzmitry Pavlov
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lokomotiv Gomel lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market7 Dec 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lokomotiv Gomel can pretend not to have heard.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Sergei Kavalyou 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mikalai Kendysh was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad7 Dec 2026
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Yuri Zhavnerchik 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.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Yakov Zheleznov has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Lokomotiv Gomel 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.