“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ventspils can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 5 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Ventspils until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Daniel Viljoen has just signed for Ventspils, and for once the answer mattered.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Ventspils can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
Ventspils asked and Liepaja said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ventspils 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 Ventspils can pretend not to have heard.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Ventspils know it.
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.
Precious Agwu 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.
20 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Ventspils lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 36 arrived, 0 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Taijo Teniste was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“100 caps was 100 more than the boy who started ever expected.” At 38 he has stepped away from the national side and has not stepped away from Ventspils.
Mihkel Ainsalu 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Ventspils training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Taijo Teniste 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.
Ventspils asked and Inter said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The shape has not worked since the summer and the reason was never a mystery. Bruno Melnis comes in from Liepaja to be the missing piece, which is a flattering description and a heavy one.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Eduards Dubra could afford to be generous.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Ventspils have gone to Liepaja 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.
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Taijo Teniste 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.
Ventspils asked and Benfica said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Godbless Ayeke 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.