On Tuesday the 21-year-old Latvian NT forward signed a 4-year deal with Italian A Serie side Spezia. Today the team announced the transfer officially. With this move, Raimonds has a chance to be the first Latvian who will play in the Italian highest league. If Raimonds plays at least one game with Spezia then Latvians would have played in all the TOP 5 leagues. Because Latvians have played in Spanish La Liga (Māris Verpakovskis), English Premier League (Marians Pahars, Kaspars Gorkšs, Igors Stepanovs, Imants Bleidelis and Andrejs Štolcers), French Ligue 1 (Kārlis Arens, Jānis Bebris, Harijs Gailis, Aleksandrs Vanags and Jānis Ikaunieks) and German Bundesliga (Artjoms Rudņevs), but Italian Serie A was missing. Raimonds in a interview to Latvijas Avīze said that he had received a lot of offers, his agent was working and showed the options to Raimonds as he had to choose. His choice went to Spezia as according to Raimonds "This option satisfied both my wishes and Valmiera FC interests. Were there other options? Yes, there was something, but it is no longer relevant."
The first news came out about the potential transfer on Sunday, everything was kept quiet for the last few days. Then it is reported that Raimonds is in Italy on Tuesday and later that evening he puts a signature on a contract, which now says that he is the new Spezia Calcio player (Raimonds said it that he has been in Italy since Monday in the same interview to the newspaper Latvijas Avīze). Valmiera will earn a fee from this transfer, it was reported that the starting asking price from Valmiera was 2.5 million Euros, but Spezia respectfully declined and wanted to negotiate. After talks both teams came to a common denominator – Spezia will pay 900 thousand euros + 600 thousand euros add-on (games played, goals, assists, call-ups to the NT) and 10% from the next transfer. Raimonds reportedly already got to know his teammates and coaches in the training on Wednesday morning. The first training with the team for Raimonds will be today. The plan is not to loan him out, but for him to be with the first team and battle for playing time for the rest of the season.
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Spezia so far is on a roll as they have not lost in five straight games and right now with 18 points are in the 15th position in the league table (20 teams are in the Serie A). Spezia yesterday was eliminated from the Coppa Italia. They could not get past Atalanta's barrier as they suffered a defeat - 2:5. So only the league games are remaining for Spezia. To Latvian fans, the most anticipated match might be on Sunday, as Krollis could be making his debut for the team on that day as they host Jose Mourinho and his Roma side in the league. Even though Raimonds said it himself that it is too early to talk about the first game, but we are hoping.
Spezia mostly is playing with two forwards up-front (3-5-2). The starting duo has been unchanged for the first half of the season – M’Bala Nzola and the captain Emmanuel Gyasi (Nzola has 18 league starts out of 18 possible and 9 goals, but Gyasi has 16 league starts and just 1 goal). There are some options from the bench also, who have had some playing time this season. 21-year-old Slovakian international David Strelec, who has played seven league games this season, it is his second season with the team after he was bought two-years ago for 1.8 million Euros from Slovan Bratislava. He has not yet scored a goal this season (last year in 10 league games, one goal), but it is reported that Strelec will likely be sold and they want to sell him in this transfer window. Next up is the 26-year-old Italian Daniel Verde. He has over 100 games of experience in Serie A and also has played in La Liga, but this season with Spezia in eight league games he has not been on the score sheet. Lastly, there is legendary Italian player Paulo Maldini's son Daniel on loan in Spezia. The 21-year-old forward has scored one league goal in six league appearances this season.
With all this said, Raimonds have a chance to earn playing time, he just needs to work and prove himself in the training sessions, I think he can do it! At the end of the day, it’s just so damn good to have a player in the TOP 5 league finally. Artjoms Rudņevs lastly played in 2017, it was 5,5 years ago, and the football fans in Latvia are starving. The best thing is that Latvians will be able to see every Raimonds Krollis Serie A game live because when Rudņevs, Pahars, Verpakovskis or Gorkšs were playing at the top, we couldn't watch their games, we needed to find some shady streams.
Raimonds started his youth career with FK Metta, after going through their ranks, he made his first team debut with them in 2019 at the age of 17, when he came off the bench as a substitute against Riga FC. His first goal came a month and a half later as he scored against Valmiera FC (then it was Valmiera Glass ViA) in a 1:4 defeat.
After spending two seasons with FK Metta he made a move to Valmiera FC and it was a great decision for him, as he became the team’s leader, became the top scorer in the league and helped Valmiera to win their first league title in history. It was fitting that he scored the game-winning goal in the last game of the season. He had a slow start to start the last season with just three goals in the first nine league games, but then he exploded as he scored 21 goals in the next 25 games. And now he makes a move to Spezia. Good luck to Raimonds, it was a pleasure to watch you play in the Latvian league and I hope this is not the ceiling, because there is loads of potential!
Raimonds Krollis career.
FK Metta 2019-2021 (50 games played 16 goals scored).
Valmiera FC 2021-2023 (65 games played 38 goals scored).
Latvian National Team (27 games played 3 goals scored).
Awards and achievements.
Latvian Virslīga Top Scorer in 2022 (24 goals)
Latvian Virslīga Champion (2022)
Latvian Young Player of the Year (2020/2021/2022)
Latvian Virslīga Best Forward (2021/2022)
Latvian Virslīga Best Player (2022)
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