Marked for Pavels Ciganovs
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market31 Aug 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Metta/LU, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Metta/LU have done the hard part with Skonto, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad31 Aug 2026
14 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Metta/LU asked and Neman said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Ivo Minkevičs 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
Words exchanged at Metta/LU
Pavels Kamess 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Jelgava 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Pavels Ciganovs is 18, and Metta/LU have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Squad31 Aug 2026
He goes off to be somebody else’s player for a fortnight. Metta/LU lose him for the window and would like him returned in the condition he left.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad31 Aug 2026
93 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Skonto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market31 Aug 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.
Market31 Aug 2026
Skonto say no — this time
The offer from Liepaja for Marcis Stolcers 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The deal with Zalgiris is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Slavia Prague is saying, and nobody at Skonto is enjoying the guessing.
Market31 Aug 2026
Stepan Yermakov has left for Ventspils in a $38.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Skonto asked and Jelgava said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market31 Aug 2026
Metta/LU pay $6.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Skonto
Igors Laizans 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Metta/LU and Skonto have settled on $6.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Metta/LU
Mahamud Abdul Karimu 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.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
$8.0K was the most the club would pay and Daugavpils were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Afonso Leite from Liepaja for $160.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Metta/LU asked and Daugavpils said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Metta/LU
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gianluca Scremin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market24 Aug 2026
The shape has not worked since the summer and the reason was never a mystery. Afonso Leite comes in from Liepaja to be the missing piece, which is a flattering description and a heavy one.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
No place for Afonso Leite in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Metta/LU are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
In brief
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Squad
Metta/LU are still strangers to each other
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The dugout
Sadiq Saleh has become a man the manager trusts
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The dugout
Raivis Laizans asks for a word with the manager