Marked for Arturs Ikaunieks
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match20 May 2028
The wait goes on for Jelgava
25 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Match20 May 2028
Chastening afternoon for Jelgava
A 0‑7 beating by Spartaks was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Squad22 May 2028
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market22 May 2028
“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.
Market22 May 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Jelgava is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match20 May 2028
Nobody could stop scoring
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Jelgava and Spartaks in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at Jelgava training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandros Parras 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.
Squad22 May 2028
Davis 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.
Squad22 May 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Raivis Rugins, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match25 Mar 2028
The wait goes on for Jelgava
17 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Davis Tarasovs damages knee ligaments — 47 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 47 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Player ratings27 Mar 2028
Kaspars Cauna, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.74
A mark of 7.74 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market27 Mar 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Jelgava they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match25 Mar 2028
Kaspars Cauna scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to Ventspils, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad27 Mar 2028
Words at Jelgava training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandros Parras 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.
Squad27 Mar 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 Jelgava this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad27 Mar 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Alvis Zjuzins's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Player ratings27 Mar 2028
Successful dribbles: 11. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match8 May 2027
The wait goes on for Jelgava
11 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad10 May 2027
Kristaps Savalnieks 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 May 2027
Alexandros Parras 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.
Match8 May 2027
Ventspils left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings10 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad10 May 2027
The manager makes an example of Kaspars Cauna
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Mar 2027
A fracture rules Roman Yemeljanov out for 57 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Jelgava will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad15 Mar 2027
65 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Jelgava lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad15 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Jelgava this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
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 Jelgava this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Jelgava training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexandros Parras 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 Dec 2026
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.