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.
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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Nobody at BATE 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.
Bogdan Chiriches 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.
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.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
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.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
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.
Three points for BATE, 1‑0 the final word against Orsha in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings4 Jul 2044
Noah Akanji was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.03. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The phone has started ringing about Stéphane Masson again, and this time the name on the line is Orsha. BATE are listening politely and promising nothing.
The offer from Isloch for Bas Lang 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.
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.
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.
Squad20 Jun 2044
Renato Bianco 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” BATE have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Renato Bianco 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.
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.
20 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
19 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” BATE have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
25 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
22 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joaquín Cornaglia 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.
Denis Mushkarin 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.
Marked 8.22 — 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.
The offer from Isloch for Stéphane Masson 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.
Renato Bianco 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joaquín Cornaglia 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.
Position 1, 55 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
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.
The offer from Osipovichi for Daniel Sierralta 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.
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.
Add another name to the list: Dnepr Mogilev have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Bas Lang. The answer from BATE has not changed — yet.
In brief
SquadWords at BATE training over how hard people work
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. BATE lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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.
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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Charles Henderson has just signed for BATE, and for once the answer mattered.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. BATE lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.