Marked for Marcel Junuzovic
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match10 Apr 2030
Spartaks bow out of the cup
Jelgava go through and Spartaks go home, 1‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Match10 Apr 2030
7 matches without a win for Spartaks
The run now stands at 7, and the questions being asked around Spartaks are no longer polite ones.
Squad15 Apr 2030
A falling-out at Spartaks
D’Angelo Lobman and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad15 Apr 2030
Vitalijs Ciganovs 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.
The dugout15 Apr 2030
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout15 Apr 2030
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dominik Kerl, and the manager let it.
Player ratings15 Apr 2030
Successful dribbles: 12. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout15 Apr 2030
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The dugout15 Apr 2030
Jonathan Okebugwu has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Spartaks 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces27 Aug 2029
The mood at Spartaks has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Market27 Aug 2029
“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.
Transfer targets27 Aug 2029
The deal with Liepaja is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad27 Aug 2029
Words exchanged at Spartaks
Vladimirs Ikaunieks and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Transfer targets27 Aug 2029
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad27 Aug 2029
A row about effort at Spartaks
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Vitalijs Ciganovs was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad27 Aug 2029
The medical room confirms 16 days on the sidelines for Marcel Junuzovic, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad27 Aug 2029
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nikola Rakić commits to Spartaks for another 4 years.
Transfer targets27 Aug 2029
A loan enquiry to Skonto: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Oct 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 Spartaks this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Oct 2028
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Spartaks are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The dugout16 Oct 2028
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Janis Savalnieks is on it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market18 Sep 2028
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Dominik Kerl in a row with a teammate
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.
Transfer targets18 Sep 2028
The clock did what Jelgava would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
The dugout18 Sep 2028
The manager makes an example of Pavels Rugins
“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.
Squad18 Sep 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Arturs Vanins commits to Spartaks for another 3 years.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Words at Spartaks training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Artūrs Karašausks 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.
Market18 Sep 2028
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Market18 Sep 2028
He is 18, and nobody at Spartaks signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Squad18 Sep 2028
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.