Marked for Rivaldo
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad2 Dec 2030
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Edgar Tur and Paide agree another 2 years.
Squad2 Dec 2030
A falling-out at Paide
Vlasi Kait and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad2 Dec 2030
Makenzie Bradbury 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 dugout2 Dec 2030
Ebrima Jarju has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Paide will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Boardroom2 Dec 2030
Paide sign a deal worth $99.9K a year
Commercial news is the news nobody sings about and everything else is paid for with. The board will call it a partnership; the accountants will call it the difference between this squad and a smaller one.
Market2 Dec 2030
The name of Ebrima Jarju keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Paide say nothing, which says plenty.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad25 Nov 2030
A falling-out at Paide
Daniel Cabral and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad25 Nov 2030
A row about effort at Paide
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nikita Krasnov was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout25 Nov 2030
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Nikita Krasnov is on it.
Market25 Nov 2030
No place for José Vieira in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” José Vieira has his answer from Paide; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout25 Nov 2030
José Vieira 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 José Vieira trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout25 Nov 2030
The manager plants his flag on Nikita Krasnov
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Nikita Krasnov’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market29 Jul 2030
Levadia come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Paide did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market29 Jul 2030
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Aston Saravanan will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Paide the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Transfer targets29 Jul 2030
No thanks: Ante Kavelj rejects the move
Paide had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at HNK Rijeka, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad29 Jul 2030
A falling-out at Paide
Daniel Cabral and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout29 Jul 2030
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.
Squad29 Jul 2030
Words at Paide training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. José Vieira 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.
The dugout29 Jul 2030
Lucão 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 Paide, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market29 Jul 2030
Lucão's people are making calls
“He needs to be playing at a level that matches him, and we are open to conversations.” Nobody says that by accident, and nobody at Paide misheard it.
The dugout29 Jul 2030
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Daniel Cabral plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
In brief
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Squad
Questions about Artur Pikk on the training pitch
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Squad
Lessons booked for Rivaldo at Paide
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Boardroom
Paide board back the manager
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad25 Feb 2030
40 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad25 Feb 2030
A falling-out at Paide
Edgar Tur and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout25 Feb 2030
news_b_frozen_out_of_the_side
The dugout25 Feb 2030
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.
The dugout25 Feb 2030
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
Squad25 Feb 2030
Rivaldo still has not settled
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Paide would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad18 Feb 2030
Words exchanged at Paide
Daniel Cabral 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.
The dugout18 Feb 2030
José Vieira gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market18 Feb 2030
Paide sign Rivaldo, one for the future
Rivaldo is 18, and Paide have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The dugout18 Feb 2030
Ebrima Jarju has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Paide will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Squad18 Feb 2030
The formation has left Rivaldo behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Paide will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout18 Feb 2030
A promise honoured at Paide
Something was said to Nikita Sednev and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Market18 Feb 2030
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Ebrima Jarju’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad18 Feb 2030
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Paide would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Squad18 Feb 2030
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Paide have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.