Left Wingback - Skonto U20
23 Apr 2030
Tuesday
Process

Marked for

175 Edition

The Skonto Gazette

3 Dec 2029
From our football correspondent Crisis

Boardroom

Skonto spell it out for Janis Oss

The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Janis Oss has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.

Boardroom

Emergency meeting at Skonto

The whole football department in one room on a weekday morning. Nothing was announced afterwards, which is what a board announces when it has run out of patience.

The dugout

Etem Xhemali: that is not what I was promised

“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Skonto have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.

Squad

Tempers go at Skonto

Vladimir Egorov 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.

Squad

Nikita Gabovs signs a new deal

“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nikita Gabovs commits to Skonto for another 2 years.

Squad

Pavels Zjuzins 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.

Squad

Skonto count the cost of losing a squad player

30 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.

The dugout

Skonto keep their word to Bismark Duah

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.

The dugout

The manager makes an example of Alvis Jurkovskis

“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.

In brief

  • The dugout Maksym Kalinkin has become a man the manager trusts
  • Boardroom Skonto trim $1.1M from the budget
  • Market The clock does Shuaibu Umar’s negotiating for him