Marked for Kaspars Cauna
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Edgar Villasboa
79 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Spartaks lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad11 Jan 2027
A fracture rules Pavels Zjuzins out for 80 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Spartaks will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market11 Jan 2027
Spartaks say no — this time
The offer from Jelgava for Marcis Bulvitis was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Spartaks training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brando Castillo 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
52 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Loan watch19 Oct 2026
“I did not go to Liepaja to sit and watch. I want to come back to Spartaks and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 10 matches say the rest.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Sep 2026
Khalid Shakhtiev 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Brando Castillo 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Spartaks are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Sep 2026
Arturs Zjuzins 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Spartaks training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brando Castillo 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.
Loan watch21 Sep 2026
“I watch every Spartaks 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market31 Aug 2026
Kaspars Cauna hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Spartaks can pretend not to have heard.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Brando Castillo 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.
Squad31 Aug 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 Spartaks this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 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 Spartaks can pretend not to have heard.
Squad3 Aug 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 Spartaks this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Spartaks training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vitalijs 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Alexei Tokarev and Spartaks agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
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. Spartaks will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
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.