Marvin Martins 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.
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.
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.
Position 5 and 3 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Liepaja this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The phone has started ringing about Timi Ogunniyi again, and this time the name on the line is Jelgava. Liepaja are listening politely and promising nothing.
Andriy Korobenko 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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Liepaja can pretend not to have heard.
Marvin Martins 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.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Liepaja lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Liepaja this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Iļja Korotkovs again, and this time the name on the line is Jelgava. Liepaja are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Liepaja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Idriz Batha 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.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Liepaja lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Liepaja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Idriz Batha 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.
Nobody at Liepaja 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 51 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Idriz Batha 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Liepaja this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 33 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Marvin Martins 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.
In brief
SquadIdriz Batha falls out with a teammate over standards
The words a physio says slowly. 118 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Liepaja 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 Liepaja this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Iļja Korotkovs again, and this time the name on the line is Skonto. Liepaja are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Liepaja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Idriz Batha 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.