Marked for Vitalijs Stolcers
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Spartaks will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match19 Aug 2026
Spartaks bow out of the cup
Liepaja go through and Spartaks go home, 0‑0 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Roman Babaev is the hero from the spot
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Roman Babaev: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 25, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 24 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Vladimirs Jagodinskis 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kristaps Ikaunieks, and the manager let it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
The kick that got away from Nikita Gabovs
Twelve yards, a goalkeeper guessing, and it still did not go in. He will take the next one, and every soul in the ground will hold their breath.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Shifted about, taken off before the hour, asked to do somebody else's running — Gatis Savalnieks has had enough of being useful and would like to be picked. Spartaks know, and have known for weeks.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
“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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Metta/LU 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Janis Tarasovs commits to Spartaks for another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Janis Tarasovs 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Nikita Gabovs
“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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Spartaks have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.