Marked for Stanislav Glebov
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Apr 2029
Evgeniy Gremza decides it from twelve yards
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Squad9 Apr 2029
120 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Smorgon lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match7 Apr 2029
Smorgon through in the cup
A 0‑1 win over Lida, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match4 Apr 2029
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Stanislav Glebov obliged against Lida. 1‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Smorgon.
The terraces9 Apr 2029
Anger at Smorgon spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Player ratings9 Apr 2029
Great Agbo beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 28. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Egor Babich 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 Smorgon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Apr 2029
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Artem Kuratnik commits to Smorgon for another 3 years.
The terraces9 Apr 2029
At 19 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match5 Apr 2028
Smorgon march on in the cup
Volna Pinsk are out and Smorgon go through, 4‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.35 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Stanislav Glebov, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.80
A mark of 7.80 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words exchanged at Smorgon
Ruslan Teverov 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.
Match5 Apr 2028
At last: Smorgon win one
6 matches without a win, and then this, against Volna Pinsk. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Kirill Yelagin 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 terraces10 Apr 2028
Smorgon supporters have found a favourite in Great Agbo
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Great Agbo 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Smorgon are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Yahor Dragun, on a 4‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Jan 2028
A fracture rules Artur Tishko out for 31 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Smorgon will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Ruslan Teverov 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.
Squad3 Jan 2028
A move Stanislav Glebov would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Stanislav Glebov is living that version at Smorgon, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Artem Kuratnik 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.
Market3 Jan 2028
He is 17, and nobody at Smorgon signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
The dugout3 Jan 2028
“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.
The dugout3 Jan 2028
Ruslan Teverov knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ruslan Teverov trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout3 Jan 2028
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.
Market3 Jan 2028
The name of Daniil Perov keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Smorgon say nothing, which says plenty.