Marked for Raman Kavalyou
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Oct 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Artem Stankevich
123 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Smorgon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad22 Oct 2035
A fracture rules Ivan Bykau out for 123 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.
Squad22 Oct 2035
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings17 Sep 2035
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Sep 2035
Egor Babich 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.
Squad17 Sep 2035
Dmitriy Simankov has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Smorgon 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Sep 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” Vadim Zavadskiy and Smorgon agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings10 Sep 2035
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad10 Sep 2035
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.
Squad10 Sep 2035
Words at Smorgon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Stankevich 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.
Match8 Sep 2035
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad10 Sep 2035
The manager makes an example of Raman Kavalyou
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Jul 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kasper Fylling
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Smorgon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market16 Jul 2035
“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.
Squad16 Jul 2035
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.
Squad16 Jul 2035
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Match14 Jul 2035
A bad afternoon for Smorgon against BATE
1‑2 to BATE, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings16 Jul 2035
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match2 Jun 2035
The wait goes on for Smorgon
9 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Boardroom4 Jun 2035
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Egor Skavysh has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Boardroom4 Jun 2035
The Smorgon board call everybody in
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Squad4 Jun 2035
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.
Player ratings4 Jun 2035
A mark of 7.90, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad4 Jun 2035
Eduard Korzun named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Eduard Korzun is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Match2 Jun 2035
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad4 Jun 2035
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.
Squad4 Jun 2035
Words at Smorgon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yauhen Klimovich 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.
In brief
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Player ratings
Raman Kavalyou runs at them all day
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Boardroom
The Smorgon production line keeps running
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Boardroom
Smorgon were not finished after all
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match26 May 2035
No end in sight to Smorgon's wait for a win
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Smorgon has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad28 May 2035
Egor Babich 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.
Squad28 May 2035
Artem Stankevich 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
Uneasy
Squad12 Mar 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kasper Fylling
26 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Smorgon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings12 Mar 2035
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.90 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad12 Mar 2035
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.
Match10 Mar 2035
It finished 2‑0, and it was Danila Slesarchuk’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Smorgon.
Player ratings12 Mar 2035
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.01, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad12 Mar 2035
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ivan Palitsevich and Smorgon agree another 3 years.
Squad12 Mar 2035
Egor Babich has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Smorgon 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.
Market12 Mar 2035
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Player ratings12 Mar 2035
The substitution nobody applauded turned out to be the whole story. Smorgon were going nowhere until he came on.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad27 Mar 2034
A knee injury of the worst kind for Kirill Hryshyn
97 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Smorgon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings27 Mar 2034
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.87, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings27 Mar 2034
No sign of nerves from Raman Kavalyou at 18 — 7.85
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Raman Kavalyou did not need any: 7.85, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings27 Mar 2034
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad27 Mar 2034
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.
Squad27 Mar 2034
Words at Smorgon training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artem Stankevich 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 terraces27 Mar 2034
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Raman Kavalyou 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.
Match25 Mar 2034
Vitebsk made Smorgon work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad27 Mar 2034
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dmitriy Simankov, and the manager let it.