Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Vladimirs Vanins will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Skonto the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Raivis Tarasovs and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Oct 2027
Words at Skonto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Seun Ogunribide 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.
8 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.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Severin Nioule and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Abba Khalid 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.
Nobody at Skonto 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Seun Ogunribide trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
Loan watchArturs Dubra’s loan is measured in nothing happening
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Skonto will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Vladimirs Vanins will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Skonto the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Skonto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
13 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Skonto will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Severin Nioule 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Skonto are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Words at Skonto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Seun Ogunribide 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Skonto, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Jelgava waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Skonto is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Severin Nioule 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Skonto can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
9 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Skonto can pretend not to have heard.
Davis Dubra has gone, the accounts have $76.0K in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
The deal with Navbahor is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Jelgava paid $76.0K and Skonto took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The name of Marcis Savalnieks has come up in conversations Skonto were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
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.
26 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Skonto lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Position 5 and 11 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.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad24 May 2027
Ermir Rashica 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.
Raivis Tarasovs 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Roberts Gabovs after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
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.
Raivis Tarasovs 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.
“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.
The dugout17 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Roberts Gabovs to a room that had heard them before.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Davis Dubra’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Skonto needing him to play as if none of it matters.
10 points from position 4. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
In brief
Player ratingsErmir Rashica beats them one at a time
41 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Skonto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Skonto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ermir Rashica 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.
“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 Skonto know it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Skonto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A mark of 7.87, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout10 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Roberts Gabovs, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Skonto, another week without a signature from Patrick Egeonu.
In brief
Looking aheadSkonto take on the side everybody is chasing
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Skonto lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ermir Rashica was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Raivis Tarasovs 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
41 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Skonto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Seun Ogunribide 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Skonto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Friday Apollos 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 109 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Olanrewaju Molade is living that version at Skonto, and it tends to show in the first month.
Raivis Tarasovs 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.