“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.
Player ratings24 Jul 2028
A brace, and Arturs Cauna takes the afternoon — 8.17
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Arturs Cauna provided it, and the 8.17 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kristaps Tarasovs will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ventspils the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Arturs Cauna 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.
Add another name to the list: Daugavpils have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Raivis Rugins. The answer from Ventspils has not changed — yet.
In brief
Player ratingsTomaž Zakrajšek was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Player ratingsAn afternoon Nikita Zjuzins will want back
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ventspils have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Arturs Cauna 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Afonso Leite 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ventspils is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Janis Ikaunieks 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.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at Ventspils training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomaž Zakrajšek 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ventspils they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ventspils this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at Ventspils training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomaž Zakrajšek 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 watch every Ventspils game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Liepaja runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
39 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Gatis Oss will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Ventspils 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 Ventspils this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Words at Ventspils training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eduards Jagodinskis 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.
69 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ventspils they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
101 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.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Ventspils is running low.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ventspils is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
115 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ventspils this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Spartaks paid $330.0K and Ventspils took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Dimitrij Ismayilov is living that version at Ventspils, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad17 Jan 2028
Words at Ventspils training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tomaž Zakrajšek 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.
130 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 27 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Ventspils is running low.
Add another name to the list: Jelgava have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Gatis Oss. The answer from Ventspils has not changed — yet.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ventspils this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 67 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ventspils this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Ventspils, and 0 appearances in 14 say he has earned the hearing.
Marked 5.48. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Yefferson Colmenárez 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 name of Marcis Oss has come up in conversations Ventspils were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Ventspils training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eduards Jagodinskis 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ventspils this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Ventspils, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Yefferson Colmenárez plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.