Marked for Davis Tarasovs
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad4 Dec 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Alvis Jagodinskis
18 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.
Match28 Nov 2028
A European lesson for Skonto
3‑4 against Rapid Wien. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Match28 Nov 2028
The wait goes on for Skonto
6 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.
Squad4 Dec 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 Skonto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match28 Nov 2028
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Skonto and Rapid Wien, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad4 Dec 2028
Words at Skonto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chovanie Amatkarijo 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
Crisis
Match24 Oct 2028
A European lesson for Skonto
4‑5 against Zurich. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Player ratings30 Oct 2028
Both of them Sihle Tati's — 8.36
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.36, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Tempers go at Skonto
Nicolás Ferreyra 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.
Match24 Oct 2028
9 goals as Skonto and Zurich go for it
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 9 goals between Skonto and Zurich, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad30 Oct 2028
Chovanie Amatkarijo 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.
Squad30 Oct 2028
“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 ratings30 Oct 2028
Ninety minutes of Brayan Palmezano at his very best
Marked 8.15. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Skonto.
Squad30 Oct 2028
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Skonto pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Player ratings30 Oct 2028
5.54 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings24 Apr 2028
A brace, and Alvis Ciganovs takes the afternoon — 9.06
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Alvis Ciganovs provided it, and the 9.06 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match22 Apr 2028
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 85th, and Ventspils spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Tempers go at Skonto
Nicolás Ferreyra 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 Apr 2028
Still nobody has beaten Skonto
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Chovanie Amatkarijo 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.
Match22 Apr 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alvis Ciganovs. 2‑1 against Ventspils, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Jérôme Bonou gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Nikita Stolcers has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Skonto 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.
Player ratings24 Apr 2028
Chances created: 5. Somebody has to open a door before anybody can walk through it, and he spent the afternoon opening doors.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Jun 2027
$1.5M. No player has ever cost Skonto more, and expectation arrives with him.
Squad7 Jun 2027
A fracture rules Mihkel Ainsalu out for 35 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Skonto will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
Squad7 Jun 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.
The terraces7 Jun 2027
Skonto spend $1.5M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $1.5M for Chovanie Amatkarijo, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad7 Jun 2027
The manager makes an example of Davis Tarasovs
“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 ratings7 Jun 2027
Marked 7.81 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Skonto had the best player on the pitch.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at Skonto training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chovanie Amatkarijo 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.
Match5 Jun 2027
It needed Igors Bulvitis to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Ventspils, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 May 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 57 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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
Liepaja left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.