Marked for Raivis Jagodinskis
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad23 Nov 2026
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Spartaks lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad23 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Spartaks
Raivis Jagodinskis and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Nov 2026
Kristaps Kamess damages knee ligaments — 35 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 14 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Adam Iliasu gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Adam Iliasu has just signed for Spartaks, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad16 Nov 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Raivis Jagodinskis and Spartaks agree another 3 years.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market16 Nov 2026
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“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.
Market16 Nov 2026
Spartaks have let the market know Igors Zjuzins can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Sep 2026
85 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Spartaks lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 64 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Spartaks
Raivis Jagodinskis and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Spartaks training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eduards Dubra 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 dugout28 Sep 2026
Olegs Fertovs knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Olegs Fertovs trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.