Marked for Raivis Fertovs
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad15 Nov 2027
Raivis Fertovs is the young player of the season
Not a month, not a run of form — a whole season of being the best 21-year-old anybody in this division could put on a pitch. This is the honour that gets mentioned for the rest of his career.
Squad15 Nov 2027
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Skonto will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad15 Nov 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Skonto may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom8 Nov 2027
Silverware for Skonto
They will talk about this season in this town for a long time. The trophy comes home with the squad, and the route is already agreed.
Match3 Nov 2027
Cup progress for Skonto
A 1‑0 win over Jelgava, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match3 Nov 2027
Skonto cannot stop winning
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Tempers go at Skonto
Paris Elmensdorp 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
“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.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
Marked 8.61 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad8 Nov 2027
Jhonarby Salazar 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.
Squad8 Nov 2027
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Vitalijs Cauna will call it something else in private.
Player ratings8 Nov 2027
12 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Jul 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dobrivoj Rusov
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Skonto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match21 Jul 2027
Skonto march on in the cup
Metta/LU are out and Skonto go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Market26 Jul 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Skonto can pretend not to have heard.
Squad26 Jul 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Skonto may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market26 Jul 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nikita Jurkovskis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Skonto the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match21 Jul 2027
Skonto cannot stop winning
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Boardroom26 Jul 2027
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Nikita Jurkovskis has agreed terms with Ventspils for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad26 Jul 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 Skonto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings26 Jul 2027
Ninety minutes of Stefano Olaya at his very best
Marked 9.06. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Skonto.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 Jun 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dobrivoj Rusov
74 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Skonto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market7 Jun 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 Skonto, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match7 Jun 2027
Skonto refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 19 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Player ratings7 Jun 2027
No sign of nerves from Raivis Fertovs at 21 — 7.62
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Raivis Fertovs did not need any: 7.62, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Tempers go at Skonto
Paris Elmensdorp 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.
Market7 Jun 2027
The phone has started ringing about Aleksandrs Tarasovs again, and this time the name on the line is Liepaja. Skonto are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Gatis Fertovs in trouble away from the ground
Every paper's favourite story and every manager's least. What happened is being dealt with internally, which is the phrase clubs use when they would rather nobody asked again.
Match5 Jun 2027
Ventspils made Skonto work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings7 Jun 2027
A performance of 8.76 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dobrivoj Rusov
81 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Skonto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings31 May 2027
Raivis Fertovs, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.57
A mark of 8.57 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.
Squad31 May 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 Skonto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings31 May 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.
The terraces31 May 2027
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match29 May 2027
It finished 1‑0, and it was Raivis Fertovs’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Skonto.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Skonto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emil Yanchev 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.
Squad31 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.
Player ratings31 May 2027
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 15 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dobrivoj Rusov
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Skonto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match22 May 2027
Skonto are shipping goals every week
Two or more conceded in each of the last 5 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Squad24 May 2027
Tempers go at Skonto
Gatis Laizans 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.
Match22 May 2027
Stefano Olaya scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Metta/LU, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad24 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.
Squad24 May 2027
Jhonarby Salazar 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 ratings24 May 2027
Stefano Olaya was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.11. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Boardroom24 May 2027
Nobody left the Skonto dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Loan watch24 May 2027
“I watch every Skonto game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Daugavpils runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 May 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Dobrivoj Rusov
95 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Skonto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad17 May 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Alex Martínez commits to Skonto for another 3 years.
Squad17 May 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 Skonto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match15 May 2027
No clean sheets in sight for Skonto
4 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Player ratings17 May 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.65, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad17 May 2027
“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.
Player ratings17 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings17 May 2027
Shots: 7. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Match15 May 2027
A 2‑2 draw with Liepaja leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 May 2027
Dobrivoj Rusov damages knee ligaments — 103 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 103 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 ratings10 May 2027
A brace, and Stefano Olaya takes the afternoon — 8.89
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Stefano Olaya provided it, and the 8.89 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad10 May 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Skonto may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad10 May 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Paris Elmensdorp and Skonto agree another 4 years.
Squad10 May 2027
Tempers go at Skonto
Paris Elmensdorp 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.
Match8 May 2027
Three points for Skonto, 4‑3 the final word against Daugavpils in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Match8 May 2027
Stefano Olaya among the goals in a wild afternoon
7 goals in one match, Stefano Olaya on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Skonto and Daugavpils.
Loan watch10 May 2027
“I watch every Skonto game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Atromitos runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Player ratings10 May 2027
6 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad3 May 2027
Dobrivoj Rusov damages knee ligaments — 110 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 110 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.
The terraces3 May 2027
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 10 of the 31 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad3 May 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 Skonto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match1 May 2027
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad3 May 2027
“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.
Squad3 May 2027
Words at Skonto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jhonarby Salazar 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.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Ten men and a goalkeeper behind him, and it still finished in the net. He knew before anybody told him, and nobody at Skonto needed to.
Market3 May 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Apr 2027
Aleksandrs Kamess damages knee ligaments — 95 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 95 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 ratings19 Apr 2027
A brace, and Jānis Grīnbergs takes the afternoon — 8.35
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jānis Grīnbergs provided it, and the 8.35 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
No sign of nerves from Raivis Fertovs at 21 — 8.85
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Raivis Fertovs did not need any: 8.85, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Match19 Apr 2027
Skonto are in among the leaders
Position 3 and 9 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad19 Apr 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 Skonto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match17 Apr 2027
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jānis Grīnbergs. 4‑3 against Ventspils, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Match17 Apr 2027
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Skonto and Ventspils in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Player ratings19 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The terraces19 Apr 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Aleksandrs Cauna 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Apr 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Aleksandrs Kamess
103 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Skonto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 17 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match10 Apr 2027
Skonto win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. Jelgava will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings12 Apr 2027
No sign of nerves from Raivis Fertovs at 21 — 7.92
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Raivis Fertovs did not need any: 7.92, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Tempers go at Skonto
Jhonarby Salazar 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.
Player ratings12 Apr 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.
Match10 Apr 2027
It finished 2‑1, and it was Raivis Fertovs’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Skonto.
The terraces12 Apr 2027
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad12 Apr 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Mar 2027
Aleksandrs Kamess damages knee ligaments — 132 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 132 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 47 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The terraces15 Mar 2027
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 33 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Squad15 Mar 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Raivis Fertovs and Skonto agree another 4 years.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Tempers go at Skonto
Jhonarby Salazar 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.
Match13 Mar 2027
Spartaks left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Loan watch15 Mar 2027
“I did not go to Atromitos to sit and watch. I want to come back to Skonto and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 6 matches say the rest.
Player ratings15 Mar 2027
Marked 5.35, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.