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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Danil Maltsev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Lokomotiv Gomel. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
In brief
The dugoutMikita Hleb knocks on the manager's door
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Lokomotiv Gomel, and 1 appearances in 13 say he has earned the hearing.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hleb Balanovich trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 97 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.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at Ostrovets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gleb Krivtsov 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.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Ostrovets, another week without a signature from Evgeniy Gremza.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Nikita Kukhtik 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Lokomotiv Gomel, and 1 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Danil Maltsev 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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Nikita Kukhtik has written the date down.
A manager forgives a bad Saturday far more readily than a bad Tuesday, because one of them he can explain and the other one he chose. The reports this week have not been good.
That is the business done at Lokomotiv Gomel 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.
Nikita Kukhtik 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Gomel have kept their man, and Lokomotiv Gomel go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Danil Maltsev 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.
Something was said to Timofey Lukyanov and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.