Marked for Vikintas Simkus
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Nov 2026
Igors Fertovs damages knee ligaments — 81 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 81 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Davis Kamess 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Vikintas Simkus 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Igors Fertovs
103 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Davis Kamess in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartaks this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Spartaks training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vikintas Simkus 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
Davis Kamess 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Vikintas Simkus 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Pavels Kamess has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Spartaks will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Sep 2026
Sokol 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.
Market7 Sep 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 Spartaks, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Davis Kamess in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartaks this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Spartaks training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vikintas Simkus 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 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Vitalijs Stolcers, and the manager let it.
Squad7 Sep 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match12 Aug 2026
Spartaks through in the cup
A 2‑1 win over Jelgava, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match12 Aug 2026
Pavels Kamess wins it after the whistle should have gone
93 minutes played. Pavels Kamess found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Jelgava went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Davis Kamess 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.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Liepaja will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Bruno Melnis has pre-agreed a move to Spartaks, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Andrius Sernas 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Vikintas Simkus 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.03 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.