Marked for Patrick Linnes
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match25 Jul 2043
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Torpedo-BelAZ, and it could have been more.
Squad27 Jul 2043
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Market27 Jul 2043
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at BATE is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market27 Jul 2043
BATE say no — this time
The offer from Ostrovets for Maxim Sakuta was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad27 Jul 2043
Defences have started doubling up on Renato Bianco
19 goals and a season average of 7.31 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Market27 Jul 2043
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Alessandro Peretti reports back to BATE with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Market27 Jul 2043
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what BATE can pretend not to have heard.
Match25 Jul 2043
Nobody wins at BATE
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Player ratings27 Jul 2043
Marked 9.69 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
In brief
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Match
6 unbeaten for BATE
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Squad
Words at BATE training over how hard people work
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Squad
Denis Mushkarin in a row with a teammate
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market20 Jul 2043
Neman come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and BATE did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market20 Jul 2043
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what BATE can pretend not to have heard.
Squad20 Jul 2043
Tempers go at BATE
Joaquín Cornaglia 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.
Squad20 Jul 2043
Words at BATE training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Renato Bianco 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.
Market20 Jul 2043
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. BATE will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad20 Jul 2043
“The easiest signature of my career.” Vaclav Provod and BATE agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market20 Jul 2043
Add another name to the list: Orsha have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Patrick Linnes. The answer from BATE has not changed — yet.
Squad20 Jul 2043
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Match18 Jul 2043
Honours even between BATE and Smorgon
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market15 Jun 2043
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at BATE, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market15 Jun 2043
The bid was some way short and BATE did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market15 Jun 2043
The name of Stéphane Masson has come up in conversations BATE were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market15 Jun 2043
Patrick Linnes has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around BATE they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad15 Jun 2043
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at BATE this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Jun 2043
Daniel Wright gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Daniel Wright has just signed for BATE, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad15 Jun 2043
Words at BATE training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jeremías Biani 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.
Squad15 Jun 2043
“The easiest signature of my career.” Stéphane Masson and BATE agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Match13 Jun 2043
Nobody wins at BATE
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Feb 2043
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 75 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market23 Feb 2043
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at BATE, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market23 Feb 2043
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Anton Gordeichuk will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around BATE the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market23 Feb 2043
The bid was some way short and BATE did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad23 Feb 2043
Tempers go at BATE
Joaquín Cornaglia 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.
Squad23 Feb 2043
18 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market13 Jan 2042
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around BATE they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad13 Jan 2042
Tempers go at BATE
Karim Pouraliganji 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.
Squad13 Jan 2042
Words at BATE training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anton Lukashov 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Dec 2041
A fracture rules Artem Malevich out for 27 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason BATE will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market16 Dec 2041
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Viktar Gordeichuk will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around BATE the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad16 Dec 2041
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at BATE this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Dec 2041
A muscle injury sidelines Denis Mushkarin for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. BATE will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Squad16 Dec 2041
A move Patrick Linnes 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. Patrick Linnes is living that version at BATE, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market16 Dec 2041
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. BATE know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
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Market
BATE shop where it costs nothing
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Market
BATE shop where it costs nothing