Marked for Victor Casseres
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom29 Mar 2027
Pressure builds in the Veles boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad29 Mar 2027
A fracture rules Javier Gonzalez out for 15 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Veles will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words exchanged at Veles
Dmitry Sergeev 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.
Boardroom29 Mar 2027
Veles counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Veles now.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Dmitry Sergeev asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
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.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Yegor Sysoev gets picked when it counts
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 Yegor Sysoev is on it.
Market29 Mar 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Zakhar Tarasenko signs something — a contract at Veles or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Mar 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Tempers go at Veles
Dmitry Sergeev 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Vladislav Galkin 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.
Boardroom22 Mar 2027
139% of the income goes out in wages at Veles
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.
The dugout22 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.
Market22 Mar 2027
The Dmitry Sadov story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dmitry Sadov signs something — a contract at Veles or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
Miroslav Maslov has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Veles can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Market8 Feb 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Veles they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A falling-out at Veles
Dmitry Sergeev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
Veles asked and Lokomotiv Moscow said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Cliques at Veles
It is the quietest kind of dressing-room problem and the one that lasts longest, because nobody has done anything anyone can be disciplined for. 2 players sit outside all 3 groups entirely, which is the detail that tends to matter.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
Dmitry Sadov loses the manager who believed in him
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Dmitry Sadov's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
Dmitry Sergeev asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Bogdan Markov
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market8 Feb 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Zakhar Tarasenko’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Juan Romero and Atletico Venezuela agree another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Juan Romero 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.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Daniel Casseres
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad10 Aug 2026
15 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Atletico Venezuela training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Fernando Machis 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.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
Juan Romero asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Sergio Rincon after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.