Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Andreas Böcking has, at Tammeka, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tammeka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mairo Miil was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Andreas Böcking is 19, and Tammeka 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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Pavel Marin’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Tammeka needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
Richard Aland and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Tammeka training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mairo Miil 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Tammeka will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Nobody at Tammeka 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Tristan Koskor signs something — a contract at Tammeka or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Richard Aland 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jack Nunn has just signed for Tammeka, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mairo Miil was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
10 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Oskar Hõim 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.
“I watch every Tammeka game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Welco runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Pavel Marin 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.
Tammeka have gone to Paide 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.
The phone has started ringing about Marius Vister again, and this time the name on the line is Welco. Tammeka are listening politely and promising nothing.
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.