Marked for Cristian Bancu
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match29 Apr 2028
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑1 against Ventspils, and it could have been more.
Match1 May 2028
Spartaks are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 18 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Player ratings1 May 2028
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.43, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market1 May 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Spartaks, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match29 Apr 2028
Spartaks cannot stop winning
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Player ratings1 May 2028
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.07 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad1 May 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartaks this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings1 May 2028
Marked 8.12 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad1 May 2028
“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; Spartaks are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad10 Apr 2028
4 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Match5 Apr 2028
Spartaks march on in the cup
Jelgava are out and Spartaks go through, 11‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Two goals and a mark of 9.13 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad10 Apr 2028
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.91 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Vitalijs Bulvitis, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.77
A mark of 7.77 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Aleksandrs 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words at Spartaks training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Raivis Savalnieks 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad17 Jan 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Spartaks may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Artem Husol 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.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Tijan Vasić 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match11 Oct 2027
Spartaks up to position 2
30 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market11 Oct 2027
Only the photograph left for Kristaps Oss
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kristaps Oss will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartaks the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Artem Husol in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartaks this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market6 Sep 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Spartaks they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Artem Husol 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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Spartaks training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vitalijs Bulvitis 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.
Squad6 Sep 2027
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.
Market6 Sep 2027
The clock runs on Cristian Bancu's contract
12 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Squad6 Sep 2027
A window away with the national side, and a shirt at Spartaks that briefly doubles as an advertisement. A call-up flatters the player and the club that built him in the same breath.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad30 Aug 2027
Artem Husol in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartaks this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words at Spartaks training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tijan Vasić 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.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Artem Husol has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Spartaks 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match7 Sep 2026
Astra sink to position 9
5 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 31. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Astra can pretend not to have heard.
Match5 Sep 2026
5 matches without a win for Astra
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Astra are no longer polite ones.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Stefan Iancu in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Astra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match5 Sep 2026
Botosani left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The medical room confirms 22 days on the sidelines for Claudiu Bancu, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Astra training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Cristian Hagi 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Cristian Hagi
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Cristian Hagi has come out of that comparison in the side, and Astra have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.