Marked for Vikintas Simkus
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market19 Oct 2026
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Roberts Bulvitis will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Spartaks the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Nikita Rugins 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Vikintas Simkus commits to Spartaks for another 3 years.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Sep 2026
So close: Gatis Laizans’s move dies late
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Skonto moved on, Gatis Laizans reports back to Spartaks, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Roberts 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.
Market14 Sep 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Vladimirs Dubra 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.
Loan watch14 Sep 2026
“I watch every Spartaks game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Liepaja runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Market14 Sep 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Spartaks, another week without a signature from Alexey Tkhagalegov.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match19 Aug 2026
The small margins put Spartaks out
Out, 0‑4 to Skonto, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Spartaks are taken apart by Skonto — and the town wants answers
It finished 0-4. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
Market24 Aug 2026
“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 Spartaks, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market24 Aug 2026
Jelgava 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Nikita Rugins 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
Alvis Jagodinskis 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.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Whether it was the goalkeeper or the ten in front of him is the argument that will fill every conversation in town this week. 5 saves does not settle it either way.