Roberts Skadats (1948) is a former Latvian

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

and

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

who played with FK Daugava Rīga for most of his career.

Playing biography

After completing secondary education Skadats was offered to join Daugava - the top football team in

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

- at the age of 18 years. His first season he spent with Daugava reserves where he was team leader. Skadats was unhappy with his position in Daugava and was close to leaving the team and joining

Zvejnieks Liepāja Zvejnieks (Latvian orthography#Old orthography, Old orthography: ''Sweineek(s)''; feminine: Zvejniece) is a Latvian people, Latvian occupational surname, derived from the Latvian language, Latvian word for "fisherman". Individuals with the surname ...

but the team manager persuaded him that he was counting on Skadats as a future main squad player. And that he indeed became - not only he played 77 matches in 1969–1970 for Daugava but also scored 15 goals (in 1969 he proved that he could become a successor to the Daugava star veteran player -

Gunārs Ulmanis Gunārs Ulmanis (1938 – 17 July 2010) was a Latvian football right wing midfielder, one of the most famous Latvian footballers of the 1960s. Biography While at school Ulmanis played both basketball and football but the famous Latvian footbal ...

and Georgijs Smirnovs). However 1970s were not a great decade both for Daugava (stuck in the third strongest league of Soviet football) and for Skadats. Despite his good technique he never realized his potentially fully because defenders played against him rough and that made Skadats too cautious on the field. He had to leave Daugava at the age of 28 because of a conflict with the general manager. Skadats played for ten more years in the Latvian league for

Elektrons Elektrons Rīga (also known as FK Alfa) was a Latvian football club from Riga that was one of the leading clubs in the Latvian league in the 1970s and 1980s. History Elektrons was founded somewhere in the 1960s (exact year has to be determin ...

but that was a much lower level than that of Daugava. In Elektrons Skadats played together with several other former Daugava footballers -

Jānis Dreimanis Jānis Dreimanis (born 13 October 1949, Riga) is a Latvian former football defender. In his career, he played 115 matches for Daugava Rīga, scoring four goals. Playing career Dreimanis' first steps in football were made with Darba Rezerves ...

Laimonis Laizāns Laimonis Laizāns (born 30 January, 1945, died 16 November, 2020) was a former Soviet Latvian football goalkeeper who played for FK Daugava Rīga and Torpedo Moscow. He is considered one of the best Latvian goalkeepers of all time. Playing biog ...

and

Ilmārs Liepiņš Ilmārs Liepiņš (1947–2007) was a Latvian football midfielder who played for 10 years for FK Daugava Rīga. Ilmārs Liepiņš came from a football family – his father Ēvalds Liepiņš was a striker for "Daugava" back in 1946-1948 and ...

, winning the Latvian championship and the

Latvian Cup The Latvian Football Cup () is the main Single-elimination tournament, knockout cup competition in Latvian Football (soccer), football. Since 2021, its full name is Responsible Game Latvian Football Cup (''Atbildīgas spēles Latvijas kauss'') due ...

several times, in 1979 he was the best goalscorer of the Latvian league.Latvia best goalscorers
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References

1948 births Latvian footballers Daugava Rīga players Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Association football forwards {{Latvia-footy-bio-stub