Marked for Olegs Bulvitis
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Apr 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Gatis Tarasovs
25 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.
Match8 Apr 2028
Jelgava ended it 0‑1. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Match8 Apr 2028
The wait goes on for Spartaks
4 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 Apr 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Muh’d Muh’d Umar commits to Spartaks for another 2 years.
Player ratings10 Apr 2028
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kristen Lapa, and the manager let it.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Words exchanged at Spartaks
Aleksandrs Cauna 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Spartaks are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout10 Apr 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Igors Jurkovskis to a room that had heard them before.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Jun 2027
“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.
Market7 Jun 2027
Liepaja come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Spartaks did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad7 Jun 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Eduards Vanins and Spartaks agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market7 Jun 2027
The name of Roberts Zjuzins has come up in conversations Spartaks were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Player ratings7 Jun 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Metta/LU have kept their man, and Spartaks go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at Spartaks training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eduards Vanins 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.
The terraces7 Jun 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Yegor Bulgakov 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.
Match5 Jun 2027
Daugavpils made Spartaks work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match17 May 2027
Every point is an argument now for Spartaks
Position 6 and 6 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market17 May 2027
“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 Spartaks, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match15 May 2027
5 matches without a win for Spartaks
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Spartaks are no longer polite ones.
Squad17 May 2027
A row about effort at Spartaks
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Eduards Vanins was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad17 May 2027
A falling-out at Spartaks
Rodolphe Ekou and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match15 May 2027
Liepaja left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout17 May 2027
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout17 May 2027
“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.
The dugout17 May 2027
Ionuţ Gurău knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Spartaks, and both men came out saying it was fine.