From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match12 Aug 2026
Liepaja march on in the cup
Metta/LU are out and Liepaja go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Market17 Aug 2026
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Liepaja
Bart Straalman 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 targets17 Aug 2026
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.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Amar Haïdara 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
The name of Mory Cissé has come up in conversations Liepaja were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Amadou Traoré at his very best
Marked 8.39. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Liepaja.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Irad Mshindi 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
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Trakai keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad10 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Peter Kings arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Peter Kings has, at Liepaja, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Metta/LU have kept their man, and Liepaja go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Davis Ikaunieks is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Eduards Kamess has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Marcis Jagodinskis has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Beknaz Almazbekov 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
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.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Navbahor have kept their man, and Liepaja go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market3 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Rodolphe Ekou again, and this time the name on the line is Metta/LU. Liepaja are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Liepaja
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Irad Mshindi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market3 Aug 2026
The clock runs on Marvin Martins's contract
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Squad3 Aug 2026
8 new faces, and Liepaja are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Trakai have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.