Marked for Bart Straalman
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market28 Sep 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Liepaja is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad28 Sep 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 Liepaja this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Vjačeslavs Isajevs 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market21 Sep 2026
Only the photograph left for Iļja Korotkovs
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Iļja Korotkovs will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Liepaja the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Marvin Martins 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match12 Aug 2026
Liepaja through in the cup
A 1‑0 win over Metta/LU, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Fellipe Vieira Cardoso, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.70
A mark of 8.70 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad17 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 Liepaja this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Fellipe Vieira Cardoso has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Timi Ogunniyi, and the manager let it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Vjačeslavs Isajevs 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Amar Haïdara again, and this time the name on the line is Skonto. Liepaja are listening politely and promising nothing.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Bart Straalman dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jānis Grīnbergs will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Liepaja the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom3 Aug 2026
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Ivans Patrikejevs has agreed terms with Metta/LU for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Danijel Petković commits to Liepaja for another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Marvin Martins 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
The name of Rodolphe Ekou has come up in conversations Liepaja were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market3 Aug 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Ingars Pūlis has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Liepaja.