From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match12 Sep 2026
No end in sight to Gomel's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gomel has to find a result from somewhere.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Gomel close the window on a squad of their own making
16 in and 3 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Dynamo Kyiv keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Gomel will try again when the window opens; Vitebsk may not be selling by then.
Market14 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Eduard Balanovich has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market14 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Vitaliy Gordeichuk has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Vladislav Lazarev 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Gomel rescue it on 91 minutes
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 91. Isloch had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match5 Sep 2026
Slutsk punish Gomel for switching off
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Alexandr Savitskiy will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Gomel escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Market7 Sep 2026
Artem Polushko has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Gomel they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match5 Sep 2026
4 matches without a win for Gomel
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Gomel are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Artem Polushko has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
$400.0K on the table at Vitebsk. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Gomel
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Timofey Simanenka was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Match5 Sep 2026
Gomel are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
“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 Gomel, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market31 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Gomel did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: PWD Bamenda keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Boardroom31 Aug 2026
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Market31 Aug 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Gomel they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Denis Laptev 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 Gomel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Gomel asked and Paide said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Timofey Simanenka 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Rostov: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match19 Aug 2026
Gomel out of the cup
Dnepr Mogilev ended it 2‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Dmitriy Emeljanov takes the afternoon — 8.46
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Dmitriy Emeljanov provided it, and the 8.46 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Gleb Protasenya, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.62
A mark of 7.62 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market24 Aug 2026
Anton Semenov hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gomel can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.87 for the rest of it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Gomel
Denis Laptev and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Gomel asked and Cibalia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Match22 Aug 2026
A bad afternoon for Gomel against BATE
1‑2 to BATE, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
In brief
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Squad
Words at Gomel training over how hard people work
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The dugout
The manager makes an example of Kirill Burov
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Boardroom
Doors closed at Gomel
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match12 Aug 2026
Gomel march on in the cup
Niva are out and Gomel go through, 3‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.14 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
At 35 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.09, and nobody on the pitch better.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Gomel
Denis Laptev 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. ND Gorica have kept their man, and Gomel go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match15 Aug 2026
Slavia Mozyr left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Marked 7.95 at 19, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Rostov is saying, and nobody at Gomel is enjoying the guessing.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Denis Laptev 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 Gomel this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Dmitriy Nizhnik has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Gomel have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Yahor Malevich is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
One of our own: Vitaliy Rios joins the Gomel first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Vitaliy Rios is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Anton Semenov, 21, steals the show — 8.14
Marked 8.14 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad3 Aug 2026
12 seasons and 245 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
Market3 Aug 2026
Gomel say no — this time
The offer from Khimik for Damir Shaikhtdinov 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.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Daniil Silinskiy commits to Gomel for another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Gomel
Denis Laptev 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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Match1 Aug 2026
It finished 2‑1, and it was Timofey Simanenka’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Gomel.
The terraces3 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Vadim Martinkevich 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.