“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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Maksim Gordeichuk will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiv Gomel the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
A season average of 7.06 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Lokomotiv Gomel know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Ivan Berezun 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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
12 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Lokomotiv Gomel has to find a result from somewhere.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Vlad Davydov will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Lokomotiv Gomel escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
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 mark of 7.92 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Vlad Davydov 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.
11 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.
Position 13 and 5 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yahor Rios will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiv Gomel the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“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 dugout22 May 2028
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 0‑2 Viktar Stasevich left the room before anybody could ask which.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Aleksey Lermontov provided it, and the 9.14 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 9 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
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.
He is 19, he is averaging 7.06, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Vlad Davydov 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Lokomotiv Gomel and Volna Pinsk, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
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.
Vlad Davydov 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.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
At 19 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Lokomotiv Gomel will try not to make too much of it.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Dzmitry Chalavach has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
SquadWords at Lokomotiv Gomel training over how hard people work
Boardroom85% of the income goes out in wages at Lokomotiv Gomel
A brace, and Vlad Davydov takes the afternoon — 9.15
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Vlad Davydov provided it, and the 9.15 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Maksim Gordeichuk, and the manager let it.
The dugout27 Mar 2028
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 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Viktar Stasevich to a room that had heard them before.
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 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Pavel Pavlov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A mark of 8.43 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Dzmitry Chalavach and Lokomotiv Gomel agree another 3 years.
Vlad Davydov 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 morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Lokomotiv Gomel asked and Gomel 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 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yuri Kendysh will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiv Gomel the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The shirt still fits. Yauhen Shikavka is back at Lokomotiv Gomel, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
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.
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.
Lokomotiv Gomel have made the call to Baranovichi. 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 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.
Lokomotiv Gomel had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Dinamo Brest, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Vlad Davydov 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. BATE have kept their man, and Lokomotiv Gomel go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aleksey Lermontov 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.
Lokomotiv Gomel have made the call to BATE. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
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 Yahor Rios is on it.
Everything agreed with Dinamo Brest, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Maksim Korzun and Lokomotiv Gomel agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Vlad Davydov 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. Baranovichi have kept their man, and Lokomotiv Gomel go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Maksim Gordeichuk has his answer from Lokomotiv Gomel; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Nobody has barred the club from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every incoming name comes with an outgoing one attached.
In brief
The dugoutPavel Pavlov has become a man the manager trusts
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yahor Rios will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lokomotiv Gomel the goodbyes have quietly begun.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Lokomotiv Gomel have had the benefit of it.
Nikita Kukhtik 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 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 dugout3 Jan 2028
Mikalai Makas is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Maksim Gordeichuk trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
37 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.
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 injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
In brief
SquadWords at Lokomotiv Gomel training over how hard people work
The dugoutIvan Berezun knocks on the manager's 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.
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. Aleksey Lermontov 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 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 Yahor Rios is on it.
Contract settled, hands shaken, no fee changing hands. Dzmitry Balanovich leaves Lokomotiv Gomel the quiet way, and the wage bill breathes a little easier.
The deal with Osipovichi is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
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.
Vlad Davydov 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. Maksim Korzun 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.
Add another name to the list: Slonim have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Yuri Kendysh. The answer from Lokomotiv Gomel has not changed — yet.