Virslīga tales from the Matchday 3.

Hey! I'm back. Yes, I did not write a piece about Matchday 2, but I had a good reason for it. I was heading back to my hometown for the weekend, so I could not attend a game in the previous round. But now I did, at least one game. So let’s see what game it was and what did I notice.

But first, let’s start with Saturday. Three games were happening yesterday, all outside of Rīga (Daugavpils, Liepāja and Jelgava). I was supposed to be at the game between FK Liepāja and Riga FC, but the housewarming party was scheduled yesterday, so no Live football from the stadium. Well, safe to say it did not stop me from following Virslīga football. With one eye I was following what was happening around me, with the other eye looking at my phone to watch how are BFC Daugavpils against SK Super Nova/Salaspils playing to start the day. Daugavpils were awful to start the season, while Super Nova had a nice little victory over Tukums before heading to the international break.

I guessed that Super Nova will get the win, but boy was I wrong. If BFC Daugavpils in stock market language were crashing down after the first two games, then in yesterday’s game it was rocketing high. The same cannot be said about Super Nova. Their curve was going up and down, up and down after two games. Then after yesterday’s performance, it is at the season low by far. They were awful yesterday, and Daugavpils were doing what they wanted yesterday. The game ended up with a dominating win by BFC Daugavpils (3:0). It was their first of the season. Safe to say the international break was needed for Daugavpils players.

Next up was FK Liepāja vs Riga FC. Coming into the game I had a feeling that this will be a very hard game for FK Liepāja and I got it right. First 11 minutes, Riga scores two goals. They are dominating and Liepāja is struggling, making mistakes and can’t catch up with the Riga player’s speed. Riga scored another one at the end of the 1st half and it was looking ugly.

A few Liepāja fans were having a tough time and a lot of the fans were heading out from the stadium at the half, but I think Riga FC is so much better than any other team in the league so far and this one game isn’t a measure to look at Liepāja strength. The measure is the other three top-of-the-league teams (Valmiera, RFS and Auda). So no need to panic for fans of Liepāja. Riga is just that damn good. Unfortunately, my friends did catch me watching too much on my mobile screen, so I had to end my sneaky watching football time and as the second half was about to start that’s when I had to turn off the game. That might be good for Liepāja's confidence that they did not allow another goal and it ended in a 3:0 victory for Riga FC. Their first win in Liepāja since the 19th of March of 2021. In that game, only two players played also in this one yesterday. One for each team. FK Liepāja - Dodo and Riga FC - Antonijs Černomordijs.

I was not able to see the last game of yesterday’s triple header between FS Jelgava and RFS. But I just wanted to congratulate the 16-year-old GK Kristers Bite who made his Virslīga debut for FS Jelgava. Can’t talk a lot about the game as I did not see it, but looking at the stats RFS were better, especially in the second half where they had 18 goal attempts to Jelgava’s 7. I had a feeling this will be a tricky game because RFS has struggled in the games after the international breaks. In the last four games right after the international break they have won once and played a draw in the other three. But they got the job done and earned their first win of the new season - 2:0.

Let’s continue with Sunday (today). I had two choices. Will I travel to Tukums to watch Tukums host Metta, or will I head to Mežaparks Sports Village to watch last year league and cup champion duel? It was an easy choice. FK Auda vs Valmiera FC will be the game to see. I anticipated an exciting game between these two teams and left wondering… because what the hell happened there today? Let’s start. Valmiera started the game by dominating from the first touch. Ingars Pūlis almost scored the first goal of the game in the first minute, but his try went just wide. I was waiting for some counterplay from Auda, but there was nothing in the first half. Auda was just giving the ball away all the time, also have to give credit to Valmiera players, their press was much better today if we compare it to the game against FK Liepāja. One more thing, such a disaster of a game for FK Auda middleman Daniils Ulimbaševs. He is supposed to be the brain in the middle and the engine which runs FK Auda in my opinion, but he might have stepped out of the bed on the wrong foot because everything he did was a bad thing - keeping the ball for too much, passes going straight to Valmiera players.

But let’s more talk about Valmiera this time, because they deserve it. The way they pressed the opposition, the passes, it was beautiful to watch from the stands. Renārs Varslavāns and Fraj Kairmani were stand-outs for me in the first half. In the first 40 minutes, Auda did not have a shot on target, while if we look at the chances Valmiera created, they should have been up by 2 goals at least in that time. Djibril Gueye did not score in the empty net from 2 metres. Daniels Balodis's header went a little bit over the goal, and Fraj Kairmani's free-kick was saved in a beautiful jump by Roberts Ozols. Can’t forget about three calls or let’s say non-calls in Auda's favour all were in the penalty area. All had a case to be called a penalty kick. Jurģis Kalns exploded on the sidelines, ‘‘Are you f*cking blind?’’ were the exact words that he had for the referee Jevgēnijs Vasjukovs. He received a yellow card from him for his complaints. But he had a case for it because from where I was sitting two of the three did look like a foul. About Vasjukovs a little bit later.

As the game went to the end of the first half, I said to myself, this will be something from Football Manager. One team is dominating, but they will get ‘‘FMed’’ I really thought Auda will make some changes at the half and get that one goal that they will need, but Valmiera spoiled it as they scored finally their first goal of the season. They needed over 200 minutes to score their first goal as Djibril Gueye after wasting the first one, did not waste the second 100% chance and he scored in the 42nd minute after a corner kick. The gas pedal was all the way down and Valmiera wanted to score another one. Counter-attack Renārs Varslavāns finds Ingars Pūlis who also scored his second chance in the game. As he scored the goal and the team went to celebrate, Vasjukovs blew a half-time whistle - 2:0 Valmiera are in front of Auda.

Second half I was hoping that Auda will show some teeth to Valmiera and give their goalkeeper Olses trouble, but no it did not happen. Ulimbaševs was still in that midfield. He is a quality player, but today he was not good. Auda finally started playing better in the 60th minute. What happened? Ulimbaševs was replaced by Resende and the game flow of Auda was so much better. Obviously, Valmiera did not pressure Auda like in the first half, but still there had some promising build-ups with Resende in the midfield.

I said that I will talk about the job Jevgēnijs Vasjukovs did today. I think that was one of the worst referee performances I have seen for quite some time. Those three fouls in the penalty area were not even the worst thing that happened. Georgi Minchev who I don’t know how he previously was a Bulgarian National Team player and is not looking like an answer at the number 9 for Auda, did have a scary incident. He was battling with the Valmiera player and the Valmiera player with a sliding tackle played the ball, Georgi fell awkwardly and was laying belly first on the ground and not moving. No one paid attention for at least 15 seconds. The referee did not even check on him, one Auda player finally went to look how he is doing and he with a hand gesture called a medical staff. The referee finally came in running to look at Minchev. That’s not a good look in my opinion. Obviously, he might think that he is just laying down and taking a break, but first of all, Auda was down two goals and he was not moving at all. Thankfully, in the end, Minchev didn’t need a stretcher and he was able to walk off the field by himself, it looks like he hit his head and was a little concussed, but his game ended and he was substituted. I said my piece about Vasjukovs today and that’s how I’m gonna end by talking about the referee for today’s game. Let’s just say, it was not a great game for the referee.

12 minutes later (in the 72nd minute) Auda played Manny Achol received his second yellow card. Great job by Valmiera player Kairmani to instigate Achol into pushing him to receive the second yellow which ultimately did send him off. As Achol just left the field Valmiera was going on the attack and Djibril Gueye again scored, his second of the game. A beautiful pass was made by Ruan Ribeiro. Valmiera continued to attack. And the same Brazilian forward who joined Valmiera on loan from Palmeiras and was the top scorer of this year Copinha also got his first professional goal right at the end of the game. Kristers Volkovs set up him and Ruan Ribeiro just needed to put down his foot and re-direct it into the goal. Valmiera in a dominating fashion gets the win over FK Auda - 4:0. Was surprised at how bad Auda looked, but impressed with the way Valmiera played. Maybe they are not going to be bad?

The only other game I have not covered yet is FK Tukums 2000/Telms vs FK Metta. FK Metta got their first win of the season. Thanks to two beautiful scored goals.

With FK Metta winning and FK Auda's losing now every single team in the league have at least one point and has lost points. The last time this happened in that fast also was in Matchday 3 back in 2017. Back then Virslīga had seven teams and at the end of the season, the difference between the 2nd and 6th place was just eight points. Maybe we are in for a dandy of a season this time also?

Matchday 4 is just around the corner. On Wednesday the games will return! Can’t wait!

Virslīga Matchday 3 results:

BFC Daugavpils vs SK Super Nova/Salaspils - 3:0

FK Liepāja vs Riga FC - 0:3

FS Jelgavs vs RFS - 0:2

FK Tukums 2000/Telms vs FK Metta - 1:2

FK Auda vs Valmiera FC - 0:4

Virslīga Matchday 4 games:

05.04. - FS Jelgava vs SK Super Nova/Salaspils

05.04. - RFS vs FK Liepāja (I will be there).

06.04. - Valmiera FC vs FK Tukums 2000/Telms

06.04. - Riga FC vs FK Auda (I will be there).

07.04. - FK Metta vs BFC Daugavpils

VIRSLĪGA TABLE AFTER MATCHDAY 3.

Thanks for reading and see you all in the next blog from Matchday 4. Which will likely come out on Saturday.