“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 The request is on a desk at Lokomotiv Gomel, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Maksim Balanovich will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiv Gomel the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout31 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Uladzimir Makas chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotiv Gomel, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Bumprom Gomel? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
a squad player 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“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.
Squad24 May 2027
Vasily Zotkin 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Uladzimir Makas after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotiv Gomel, and both men came out saying it was fine.
a squad player 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vasily Zotkin 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.
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Yauhen Savitski was the best thing in any of them.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Hleb Makas trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
a squad player 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vasily Zotkin 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.
Marked 7.55 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Lokomotiv Gomel had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Uladzimir Makas kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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 Raman Martynovich is on it.
a squad player 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Lokomotiv Gomel can tell you which week it ends in.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Uladzimir Makas to a room that had heard them before.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vasily Zotkin trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
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 had been thinking. Vasily Zotkin 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 door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑4 Uladzimir Makas left the room before anybody could ask which.
Beaten 4 times, 0 saves, and an afternoon that will go on his record whether it was his fault or the defence’s. It is the quiet unfairness of the position.
1 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Maksim Balanovich will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiv Gomel the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Raman Martynovich has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Vasily Zotkin 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.
Minute 85, against Molodechno, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Raman Martynovich is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
a squad player 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.
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 Raman Martynovich is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Anton Volodko trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Stanislau Pavlov may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
In brief
SquadThe training reports on Anton Volodko are not good
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Maksim Shikavka is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vasily Zotkin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout22 Mar 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Uladzimir Makas to a room that had heard them before.
Every debut is a small story about the future: Vadzim Chalavach, 20 years old, off the academy pitches and into the first team. The parents in the stand will keep the programme.
Orsha will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Lokomotiv Gomel were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
A brace, and Viktar Pavlov takes the afternoon — 8.26
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Viktar Pavlov provided it, and the 8.26 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Maksim Balanovich will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiv Gomel the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Balance sheets do not care about form or about who the manager was planning to build around. The board have decided a sale is required, and the only question left is which name ends up carrying it.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Vitebsk is saying, and nobody at Lokomotiv Gomel is enjoying the guessing.
a squad player 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vadzim Chalavach is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The phone has started ringing about Maksim Balanovich again, and this time the name on the line is Uni-X Labs. Lokomotiv Gomel are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Vasily Zotkin 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.
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.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Lokomotiv Gomel than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Lokomotiv Gomel have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“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 Lokomotiv Gomel, and it is not being withdrawn.
a squad player 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. Torpedo-BelAZ have kept their man, and Lokomotiv Gomel go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vasily Zotkin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Torpedo-BelAZ have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Lokomotiv Gomel have made the call to Neman. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Lokomotiv Gomel people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“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.
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.
Lokomotiv Gomel have made the call to Torpedo-BelAZ. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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 Uladzimir Rios was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Yan Rios trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Sergei Ihnatovich is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vasily Zotkin 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.
“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.
a squad player 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.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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 Raman Martynovich is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sergei Ihnatovich trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Maksim Balanovich will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiv Gomel the goodbyes have quietly begun.
a squad player 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 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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.
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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Vasily Zotkin 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.
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.
a squad player 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vasily Zotkin 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mikita Signevich signs something — a contract at Lokomotiv Gomel or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vitaliy Zhavnerchik trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
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 Uladzimir Rios was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vasily Zotkin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
a squad player 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vasily Zotkin 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.
17 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.
a squad player 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotiv Gomel, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Sergei Ihnatovich has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
24 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Lokomotiv Gomel lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
a squad player 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 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vasily Zotkin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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 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 Vasily Zotkin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Mikita Stasevich may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Lokomotiv Gomel, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The words a physio says slowly. 38 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Sergei Ihnatovich is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
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.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Lokomotiv Gomel will try again when the window opens; Vitebsk may not be selling by then.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Bumprom Gomel waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lokomotiv Gomel is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Isloch is saying, and nobody at Lokomotiv Gomel is enjoying the guessing.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.99 beside his name.
Isloch go through and Lokomotiv Gomel go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
a squad player 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vasily Zotkin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Yauhen Savitski and Lokomotiv Gomel agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Mikita Signevich 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. BATE have kept their man, and Lokomotiv Gomel go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Every signing waits for it and every press conference asks about it until it comes. It has come, Lokomotiv Gomel have their man off the mark, and the second one is always easier.