14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Jelgava lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Klinshak Longbak and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Words at Jelgava training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pavels Zjuzins 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.
6 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.
Nobody at Jelgava 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Jelgava, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Bohdan Bezus
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Jelgava lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Klinshak Longbak 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.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Jelgava will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pavels Zjuzins was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Jelgava, and it is not being withdrawn.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Deadline passes with 16 signed and 14 gone
That is the business done at Jelgava 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.
The shirt still fits. Eduards Oss is back at Jelgava, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Klinshak Longbak 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Chrysanthos Gezos has just signed for Jelgava, and for once the answer mattered.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spartaks have kept their man, and Jelgava go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Jelgava can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Nobody at Jelgava 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Vitebsk waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Jelgava is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Jelgava lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Position 6 and 8 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.
“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 Jelgava, and it is not being withdrawn.
Rodolphe Ekou 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Klinshak Longbak was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
45 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Jelgava lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Jelgava, and it is not being withdrawn.
The phone has started ringing about Kristaps Vanins again, and this time the name on the line is Vitebsk. Jelgava are listening politely and promising nothing.
Rodolphe Ekou 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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words at Jelgava training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Klinshak Longbak 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.