Marked for Eduards Oss
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad25 Jan 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 38 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market25 Jan 2027
“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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
A falling-out at Skonto
Marcel Mendes-Dudziński and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Aktobe have kept their man, and Skonto go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Nikita Bulvitis 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.
Market25 Jan 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Skonto have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
“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.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
NK Celje have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
Gatis Cauna has become a man the manager trusts
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad4 Jan 2027
A fracture rules Nikita Stolcers out for 60 days
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.
Market4 Jan 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Skonto, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at Skonto
Igors Bulvitis 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Pavels Savalnieks is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Market4 Jan 2027
The name of Alvis Ikaunieks has come up in conversations Skonto were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
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.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Igors Bulvitis
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Nikita Bulvitis 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 targets4 Jan 2027
Skonto have made the call to Qarabag. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Dec 2026
75 days out for Nikita Stolcers after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Skonto will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Eduards Fertovs 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.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Kristaps Stolcers is on it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Dec 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 89 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market7 Dec 2026
“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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Eduards Oss slips down the pecking order
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Eduards Oss is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
Ekene Olisema knocks on the manager's door
“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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Ekene Olisema has moved up it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 Oct 2026
A falling-out at Skonto
Gatis Cauna and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Alvis Ikaunieks
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad5 Oct 2026
The captaincy has been taken off Kaspars Jurkovskis. Skonto will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
When it matters, Gatis Cauna plays
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
A row about effort at Skonto
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Olegs Gabovs was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Olegs Gabovs knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Olegs Gabovs trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Skonto will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market3 Aug 2026
Slutsk come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Skonto did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market3 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Eduards Laizans again, and this time the name on the line is Naftan. Skonto are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Skonto
Igors Bulvitis 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
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Koper have kept their man, and Skonto go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Skonto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kaspars Jurkovskis 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Eduards Oss commits to Skonto for another 2 years.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Olympiacos have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.