Marked for Edgaras Simkus
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Feb 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Trakai can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 2 gone
That is the business done at Trakai 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.
Market7 Feb 2028
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Atlantas moved on, Donatas Kuklys reports back to Trakai, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Transfer targets7 Feb 2028
Trakai have gone to Zalgiris with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Rokas Satkus 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 Trakai this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets7 Feb 2028
Trakai asked and Siauliai 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 Feb 2028
Words at Trakai training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lukas Dubickas 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.
Transfer targets7 Feb 2028
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Trakai will try again when the window opens; Siauliai may not be selling by then.
Squad7 Feb 2028
14 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets10 Jan 2028
Everything agreed with Zalgiris, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Rokas Satkus 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 Trakai this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets10 Jan 2028
Trakai asked and Siauliai said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market10 Jan 2028
The name of Deividas Kazlauskas has come up in conversations Trakai were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad10 Jan 2028
Words at Trakai training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Justas Jankauskas 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.
Squad10 Jan 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Rúben Cabral and Trakai agree another 4 years.
Squad10 Jan 2028
44 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
The dugout10 Jan 2028
Lukas Dubickas knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Trakai, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout10 Jan 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Saulius Simkus, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad8 Mar 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Arvydas Slavickas
87 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Trakai lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nikola Stojković and Trakai agree another 2 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words exchanged at Trakai
Innokentiy Yermakov 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.
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
6 academy graduates step up at Trakai
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Trakai training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikola Stojković 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.
Market8 Mar 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Paulius Kuklys is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market8 Mar 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Tomas Barauskas 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.
Market8 Mar 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Edvinas Kuklys is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market8 Mar 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Edgaras Simkus 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.