Marked for Viktar Sivakov
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market15 Mar 2027
Yahor Kendysh hands in a written request
“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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Market15 Mar 2027
Ivan Hleb has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotiv Gomel they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Ruslan Kavalyou, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.85
A mark of 7.85 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Boardroom15 Mar 2027
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 23. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Valentin Konovalov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match13 Mar 2027
1‑2 to Belshina, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The terraces15 Mar 2027
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 41. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad8 Mar 2027
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Lokomotiv Gomel will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market8 Mar 2027
“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.
Market8 Mar 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lokomotiv Gomel they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Transfer targets8 Mar 2027
Lokomotiv Gomel had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Molodechno, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Viktar Sivakov and Lokomotiv Gomel agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 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 Lokomotiv Gomel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Nov 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 119 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad23 Nov 2026
A muscle injury sidelines Viktar Sivakov for 16 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Lokomotiv Gomel will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Market23 Nov 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Yahor Kendysh at 20 — 7.86
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Yahor Kendysh did not need any: 7.86, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Yahor Kendysh and Lokomotiv Gomel agree another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Valentin Konovalov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Lokomotiv Gomel asked and Lida said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Viktar Sivakov did the work nobody counts — 7.20
10 combined actions and 7.20. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Match8 Aug 2026
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 89. Belshina had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Match8 Aug 2026
It needed Yahor Kendysh to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Belshina, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Aliaksandr Noyok after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.