Marked for Roberts Savalnieks
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Jun 2036
Ronald Valencia 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.
Squad16 Jun 2036
Words at Metta/LU training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rūdolfs Kļavinskis 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.
Squad16 Jun 2036
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Apr 2036
Raivis Gabovs has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Metta/LU can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Squad7 Apr 2036
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Boardroom7 Apr 2036
Crisis meeting at Metta/LU
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Match7 Apr 2036
Metta/LU sink to position 5
5 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad7 Apr 2036
“The easiest signature of my career.” Vladislav Kucheiko and Metta/LU agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings7 Apr 2036
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.97, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Squad7 Apr 2036
Mahamud Abdul Karimu 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.
Squad7 Apr 2036
Words at Metta/LU training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eli Wilson 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 Apr 2036
A 2‑2 draw with Skonto leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom4 Feb 2036
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Boardroom4 Feb 2036
The Metta/LU board call everybody in
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Market4 Feb 2036
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Metta/LU can pretend not to have heard.
Squad4 Feb 2036
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metta/LU this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Feb 2036
Eli Wilson 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.
Squad4 Feb 2036
Ronald Valencia loses the manager who believed in him
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Ronald Valencia's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
Boardroom4 Feb 2036
Metta/LU pull $1.3M back off the table
The money that was there in the summer is not there now. Nobody upstairs calls this a change of ambition, and everybody downstairs reads it as one.
Squad4 Feb 2036
Bekim Maliqi is not saying it is over
“Ask me in the summer. I will know before anybody else does.” He is 34 with 174 appearances behind him, and Metta/LU have to plan for both answers.
Market4 Feb 2036
Metta/LU have made Henrijs Gulbis available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad3 Sep 2035
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.
Boardroom3 Sep 2035
Raivis Gabovs has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Metta/LU can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Match3 Sep 2035
Metta/LU sink to position 5
14 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Boardroom3 Sep 2035
Crisis meeting at Metta/LU
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Boardroom3 Sep 2035
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Metta/LU
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad3 Sep 2035
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad3 Sep 2035
157 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Squad3 Sep 2035
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Vladislav Kucheiko commits to Metta/LU for another 2 years.
Boardroom3 Sep 2035
$1.3M taken back off the Metta/LU table
What was available in the summer has quietly gone. Upstairs nobody will call it a change of ambition; downstairs nobody will call it anything else.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad25 Jun 2035
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Metta/LU will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market25 Jun 2035
“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 Metta/LU, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Mahamud Abdul Karimu 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Jun 2035
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Metta/LU will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market18 Jun 2035
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Metta/LU can pretend not to have heard.
Squad18 Jun 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Metta/LU this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jun 2035
Rustam Vazitdinov 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.
Squad18 Jun 2035
“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.
Market18 Jun 2035
1 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Metta/LU could get for him.