Marked for Pavels Stolcers
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Nov 2029
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
Squad26 Nov 2029
Igors Bulvitis 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.
Squad26 Nov 2029
Words at Ventspils training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vitalijs Ikaunieks 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market20 Nov 2028
“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.
Squad20 Nov 2028
Harald Martin Hauso 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.
Squad20 Nov 2028
The medical room confirms 24 days on the sidelines for Pavels Stolcers, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market23 Oct 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Ventspils, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Harald Martin Hauso 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.
Squad23 Oct 2028
Words at Ventspils training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vitalijs Ikaunieks 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
Upbeat
Squad20 Mar 2028
A fracture rules Gatis Tarasovs out for 94 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ventspils will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad20 Mar 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Pavels Stolcers
17 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ventspils lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Harald Martin Hauso 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.
Match18 Mar 2028
Whatever happens, Ventspils do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad20 Mar 2028
Words at Ventspils training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vitalijs Ikaunieks 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 ratings20 Mar 2028
The afternoon belonged to Patrik Vydra
A mark of 7.15, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad13 Mar 2028
A fracture rules Gatis Tarasovs out for 101 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ventspils will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad13 Mar 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Pavels Stolcers
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ventspils lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market13 Mar 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ventspils can pretend not to have heard.
Squad13 Mar 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ventspils this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Vitalijs Ikaunieks 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad6 Mar 2028
A fracture rules Gatis Tarasovs out for 108 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ventspils will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad6 Mar 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Pavels Stolcers
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ventspils lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad6 Mar 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Igors Bulvitis and Ventspils agree another 3 years.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Harald Martin Hauso 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.
Boardroom6 Mar 2028
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Market6 Mar 2028
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Alvis Ikaunieks is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market6 Mar 2028
One of our own: Gatis Oss joins the Ventspils first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Gatis Oss is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market6 Mar 2028
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Eduards Tarasovs has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market6 Mar 2028
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Alvis Jagodinskis is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
In brief
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Boardroom
Ventspils turn down the training-ground plan
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Boardroom
Ventspils keep producing them