Taijo Ainsalu 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.
Squad16 Dec 2030
Tord Salte 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The words a physio says slowly. 95 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Parnu can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parnu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at Parnu training over how hard people work
0‑3 to Levadia, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 8 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Amer Kthupi 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.
Squad10 Jun 2030
Tord Salte 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
Taijo Ainsalu 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.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Parnu can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Parnu will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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 Parnu, and it is not being withdrawn.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Amer Kthupi 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.
Squad3 Dec 2029
Tord Salte 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The words a physio says slowly. 53 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Parnu this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadWords at Parnu training over how hard people work
The words a physio says slowly. 102 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.
Position 8 and 14 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
The words a physio says slowly. 109 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
96 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Parnu lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Amer Kthupi did not need any: 7.84, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Taijo Ainsalu 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.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.