Marked for Frank Kallaste
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Dec 2026
Ivan Korzhenevskiy 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 dugout21 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at FCI Tallinn would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what FCI Tallinn can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 24 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at FCI Tallinn 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Everything agreed with Tammeka, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad7 Sep 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 FCI Tallinn this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
FCI Tallinn asked and Sillamae Kalev said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Thomas Lisboa 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.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
FCI Tallinn ran out of time with Nomme Kalju. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Market7 Sep 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad7 Sep 2026
13 new faces, and FCI Tallinn are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.