Marked for Eduard Ihnatovich
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad25 Oct 2027
A fracture rules Maxim Kiselev out for 26 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Slutsk will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The dugout25 Oct 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.
Market25 Oct 2027
Only the photograph left for Daniil Kirbay
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Daniil Kirbay will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Slutsk the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Oleg Nikiforenko 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.
Squad25 Oct 2027
A falling-out at Slutsk
Dmitriy Vashkevich and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
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.
Market25 Oct 2027
Slutsk have made Oleg Nikiforenko available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
Market25 Oct 2027
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dmitriy Vashkevich signs something — a contract at Slutsk or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Makar Litskevich trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad30 Aug 2027
Eduard Ihnatovich damages knee ligaments — 20 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 20 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.
Market30 Aug 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market30 Aug 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Slutsk people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Match28 Aug 2027
Nobody wants to play Slutsk right now
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Evgeny Chernov, 34, rolls back the years — 7.96
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.96 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market30 Aug 2027
Daniil Lesko has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Slutsk they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad30 Aug 2027
A falling-out at Slutsk
Vladislav Fedosov and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets30 Aug 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Oleg Nikiforenko 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad10 Aug 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 Slutsk this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Isloch have kept their man, and Slutsk go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Slutsk
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vladislav Sychev was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match8 Aug 2026
0‑2 to Torpedo-BelAZ, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Mikalai Klimovich is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Eduard Ihnatovich has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Uladzimir Gordeichuk has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Hleb Signevich has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.