Aleksandrs Starkovs (born 26 July 1955) is a 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 ...

coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Coac ...

and a former player. Most recently he coached

FK Liepāja FK Liepāja/Mogo is a Latvian football club, founded in 2014. The club is based at the Daugava Stadium in Liepāja. FK Liepāja plays in the Latvian Higher League. In their first season they finished 4th in the 2014 Latvian Higher League. His ...

. Starkovs has managed clubs such as Spartak Moscow in Russia,

FK Baku FC Baku ( az, "Bakı" Futbol Klubu) is an Azerbaijani football club based in Baku that has been an amateur club since 2016. Prior to that, Baku played 18 seasons in the Azerbaijan Premier League, winning the championship twice and earning the Na ...

in Azerbaijan and

Skonto FC Skonto FC was a Latvian football club, active from 1991 until 2016. The club played at the Skonto Stadium in Riga. Skonto won the Virsliga in the first 14 seasons of the league's resumption (15 in total), and often provided the core of the Latv ...

in Latvia. He had three stints with the Latvia national team.

Playing career

Starkovs started playing football in Madona where he played for the local Olimpija Madona playing for which he was selected the best forward of the 1969 Latvia ''Leather ball'' tournament. In 1975 Starkovs joined FK Daugava Rīga. In 1978 Starkovs went to

FC Dynamo Moscow FC Dynamo Moscow (''FC Dynamo Moskva'', russian: Дина́мо Москва́ ) is a Russian football club based in Moscow. Dynamo returned to the Russian Premier League for the 2017–18 season after one season in the second-tier Russian Fo ...

but it was not the right team for him, so soon Starkovs was back in Riga. However his best years were still to come - in 1980s Starkovs was one of the best snipers of the Soviet first league, scoring over a hundred goals for Daugava. In November 2003, to celebrate

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs fo ...

's Jubilee, he was selected as the Golden Player of Latvia by the

Latvian Football Federation The Latvian Football Federation (LFF) ( lv, Latvijas Futbola federācija) is the governing body of football in Latvia with its headquarters located in the capital Rimi Sports Centre in Riga. Its activities include the organizing of the Latvian ...

as their most outstanding player of the past 50 years

Coaching career

As a team manager Starkovs made his name with

which he brought to innumerable Latvian championships. He also worked with the Latvia national under-21 football team, Latvia U21 national team and in 2001 he was appointed the general manager of Latvia national team. He took over the Latvian national team after its disastrous performance in

2002 FIFA World Cup The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams organized by ...

qualifiers and lead the team to its biggest success ever, qualifying for

Euro 2004 The 2004 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2004, was the 12th edition of the UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football competition contested by the men's national teams of UEFA member associations. The ...

with a victory over

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

bronze medalist

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

. After his success as the national team coach, he joined Spartak Moscow winning the silver medal of the Russian league in 2005, but in April 2006 he was forced to quit due to total obstruction from the team's fans and a conflict with former team captain

Dmitri Alenichev Dmitri Anatolyevich Alenichev (russian: Дмитрий Анатольевич Аленичев; born 20 October 1972) is a Russian football coach, former player and politician. Club career Despite being a Spartak Moscow fan, Alenichev debuted ...

. Starkovs returned to Latvia in 2007 and took over the Latvian national team, which had been struggling under

Jurijs Andrejevs Jurijs Andrejevs (born 16 January 1957 in Riga, Latvia, USSR) is a former footballer who is currently the sporting director of Latvian Football Federation. Previously he was the manager of the team but was released in 2008 after an unsuccessful ...

. In late 2009 Starkovs accepted the offer to manage

and officially became the manager of the club in January 2010 as

Paul Ashworth Paul Anthony Ashworth (born 29 September 1969) is an English football manager and former player. Ashworth had previously played at youth level for Norwich City before setting up PASS Soccer Schools, a national company. He later worked for Ca ...

left. His return was explicitly successful as he managed to win the league. In January 2011 Starkovs left Skonto FC, signing a contract in Azerbaijan with

FC Baku FC Baku ( az, "Bakı" Futbol Klubu) is an Azerbaijani football club based in Baku that has been an amateur club since 2016. Prior to that, Baku played 18 seasons in the Azerbaijan Premier League, winning the championship twice and earning the Na ...

. Besides the work with the

Azerbaijan Premier League The Azerbaijan Premier League ( az, Azərbaycan Premyer Liqası) is a professional league for men's association football clubs. At the top of the Azerbaijan football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. It is conteste ...

club he still remained the manager of Latvia national team. Following series of unsuccessful matches Starkovs left his position on 15 July 2013, being replaced by the former Southampton F.C. star Marians Pahars. Having been linked with potential moves to various clubs and national teams over time, Starkovs, though, has not taken office at any of them, stating he is "waiting for an interesting offer football-wise". He is currently working at the

as the chairman of the National teams' committee. Starkovs also works as a coach for the Skonto Academy youth teams.

References

Spartak terminates Starkovs' contract

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Starkovs, Aleksandrs 1955 births Living people People from Madona Latvian footballers Soviet footballers Latvian football managers Latvia national football team managers UEFA Euro 2004 managers Daugava Rīga players FC Dynamo Moscow reserves players Latvian people of Russian descent FC Spartak Moscow managers Russian Premier League managers UEFA Golden Players Expatriate football managers in Russia Skonto FC managers Latvian expatriates in Azerbaijan Latvian sports coaches Latvian sportspeople Association football forwards