Marked for Marek Sappinen
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Apr 2027
73 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sillamae Kalev lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
Marek Sappinen, 34, rolls back the years — 7.90
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.90 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad12 Apr 2027
33 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad12 Apr 2027
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Sillamae Kalev know it.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Ivaylo Naydenov 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.
Match10 Apr 2027
A 1‑0 win over Flora, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Loan watch12 Apr 2027
“I did not go to Tulevik to sit and watch. I want to come back to Sillamae Kalev and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 11 matches say the rest.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
5 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 11. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad29 Mar 2027
87 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sillamae Kalev lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The terraces29 Mar 2027
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 8 of the 28 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Jesús Rengel 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.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Sillamae Kalev training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ivaylo Naydenov 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.
Match27 Mar 2027
Paide left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad29 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ivaylo Naydenov, and the manager let it.
Player ratings29 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Loan watch29 Mar 2027
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Sillamae Kalev, and 3 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Player ratings29 Mar 2027
5.66. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad8 Mar 2027
108 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sillamae Kalev lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
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 Sillamae Kalev can pretend not to have heard.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Marek Sappinen commits to Sillamae Kalev for another 2 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Jesús Rengel in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sillamae Kalev this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Match6 Mar 2027
Tammeka made Sillamae Kalev work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Ivaylo Naydenov 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.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Jesús Rengel was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.04. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The terraces8 Mar 2027
At 22 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sillamae Kalev this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Sillamae Kalev training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesús Rengel 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Marek Sappinen has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sillamae Kalev this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Marek Sappinen 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Oct 2026
Ivaylo Naydenov 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at Sillamae Kalev training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicklas Bärkroth 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.
Loan watch26 Oct 2026
“I watch every Sillamae Kalev game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Tammeka runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.