The words a physio says slowly. 133 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Liepaja have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Apr 2032
Words at Liepaja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marvin Martins 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Liepaja they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Bart Straalman 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.
Squad26 May 2031
Words at Liepaja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marvin Martins 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Position 3, 11 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
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.
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.
It finished 2‑1, and it was Ingars Pūlis’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Liepaja.
Squad28 Apr 2031
Words at Liepaja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladislavs Sorokins 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.
Player ratings28 Apr 2031
Ingars Pūlis was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.17. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
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.
Squad21 Apr 2031
Words at Liepaja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tebogo Moreri 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Liepaja will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
8 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad17 Mar 2031
Words at Liepaja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladislavs Sorokins 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.
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 Oct 2030
Words at Liepaja training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Vladislavs Sorokins 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.
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.
In brief
SquadIngars Pūlis is not doing himself any favours