Aleksandrs Dibrivnijs (born 28 August 1969 in

Jēkabpils Jēkabpils () is a state city in Jēkabpils Municipality in southeastern Latvia, located roughly halfway between the capital Riga and Daugavpils, and spanning the Daugava River. The name of the city literally translates into "Castle of Jacob". H ...

) is a former

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

international

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

, a four-time champion of

. In his very first senior season in 1987 Dibrivnijs won the

Latvian Cup The Latvian Football Cup () is the main knockout cup competition in Latvian football. Since 2021, its full name is Responsible Gaming Latvian Football Cup (''Atbildīgas spēles Latvijas kauss'') due to the sponsorship by sports betting company ...

with VEF Rīga. In the cup final against

Torpedo Rīga Torpedo Rīga was a football club that played in Riga. The club played in the Latvian league with good success from 1979 to 2000 when it merged with Policijas FK. History As Torpedo Rīga Torpedo Rīga was a football club which was supported by ...

Dibrivnijs came on as a substitute and scored the winning penalty in the shoot-out. Dibrivnijs spent two years with VEF but in 1988–1989 he had to start his military service in the

Soviet Army The Soviet Ground Forces () was the land warfare service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992. It was preceded by the Red Army. After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under th ...

. During the first months in the army Dibrivnijs still was allowed to play football with VEF, then he was assigned to play with

RAF Jelgava RAF Jelgava was a Latvian football club based in Jelgava. The foundation of the club is considered in 1988 and for the first two years there were two teams of RAF Jelgava which in 1990 merged into one. One of those played in the lower Soviet leag ...

, however as he didn't make the first-squad selection of RAF, he mostly played with Junioru izlase. After Dibrivnijs had expressed an interest in joining

FC Baltika Kaliningrad FC Baltika () is a professional association football club based in Kaliningrad, Russia. The club will return to the Russian Premier League in the 2025–26 season. History The club was founded on 22 December 1954 as ''Pishchevik Kaliningrad''. In ...

, Dibrivnijs was sent to continue his service far from Latvia – in

Irkutsk Irkutsk ( ; rus, Иркутск, p=ɪrˈkutsk; Buryat language, Buryat and , ''Erhüü'', ) is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 587,891 Irkutsk is the List of cities and towns in Russ ...

. There he played football with the local army squad and attracted interest from the management of

FC Zvezda Irkutsk FC Zvezda Irkutsk () was a Russian football club based in Irkutsk. Zvezda finished first in the Russian Second Division East in 2006, winning promotion to the Russian First Division. The club previously played in the First Division between 1992 a ...

. He participated in some trainings with the club but wasn't allowed to play for it. After completing his military service and returning to

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

Dibrivnijs received transfer papers for joining Zvezda Irkutsk, but he stayed in Riga and joined

Pārdaugava Riga Pārdaugava (literally means "Trans" or "Over" -Daugava area, formerly ) is an area most often associated with Riga, composed of several neighbourhoods on the west (left) bank of Daugava River. The name is literally translated as 'over Daugava' ...

which was then coached by

Jānis Gilis Jānis Gilis (27 April 1943 – 13 September 2000), was the first general manager of Latvia national football team after Latvia regained independence. Playing career His first senior team was ASK Riga. From 1965 to 1968 Gilis played in the st ...

. In 1991 Dibrivnijs joined

Skonto Riga Skonto FC was a Latvian professional 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 cor ...

for which he played until the summer of 1994, winning the

Latvian Higher League Latvian Higher League or Virslīga, also known as TonyBet Virslīga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Latvia and the highest level of the Latvian football league system. Organised by the Latvian Footbal ...

all these four years. In 1993 Dibrivnijs played his single official match for

Latvia national football team The Latvia national football team () represents Latvia in men's international Association football, football, and is controlled by the Latvian Football Federation, the governing body for football in Latvia. They have never qualified for the FIF ...

as it beat

Estonia national football team The Estonia men's national football team () represents Estonia in international football matches and is controlled by the Estonian Football Association, the governing body for football in Estonia. Estonia's home ground is Lilleküla Stadium ...

to win the Baltic Cup.Latvian international football in 1993
/ref> In the middle of the 1994 season Dibrivnijs left Skonto, as after an injury he got very little playing practice. He joined

Olimpija Rīga Olimpija Rīga was a Latvian football club based in Riga that played in the Latvian Latvian Higher League from 1992 to 1995. History The club was founded in 1992 as Kompar-Daugava, using the name of the former FK Daugava in addition to the spo ...

which had won the silver medals of the Latvian league the previous year but was already on a decline in 1994 and in 1995 finished in the 9th place in the Latvian League and went bankrupt. After that Dibrivnijs spent one year Skonto/Metāls. In his last season in the

in 1997 Dibrivnijs played with

Daugava Rīga FK Daugava Rīga was a Latvian football club, based at the Daugava Stadium in Riga. They played in the Latvian Higher League. The last manager of the team was Armands Zeiberliņš. From the club's foundation in 2003 till 2009 the club was kno ...

which under the management of

Jurijs Popkovs Jurijs Popkovs (born 6 July 1961) is a Latvian football manager and former player. He last managed the Latvian Higher League club FK Spartaks Jūrmala. Playing career Jurijs Popkovs was born in Kiev, Ukraine. His first professional club was Dy ...

won the silver medals of

Virslīga Latvian Higher League or Virslīga, also known as TonyBet Virslīga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Latvia and the highest level of the Latvian football league system. Organised by the Latvian Football F ...

. After leaving FC Daugava Dibrivnijs continued playing football with several

Latvian First League The Latvian First League () is the second tier of football in Latvia and is organised by the Latvian Football Federation. Since 2021, its full name is Nākotnes Līga (''Future League''). History The league was founded together with other Latv ...

clubs, however his preferences switched to

futsal Futsal is a variant of association football played between two teams of five players each on a court smaller than a football pitch. Its rules are based on the Laws of the Game (association football), Laws of the Game of association football, and i ...

in which he also represented the Latvia national team, and in later years also took up coaching. As of October 2008 he is the playing head coach of the strongest Latvian futsal club – Nikars Rīga.

Honours

* Baltic Cup (1): **

1993 The United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as: * International Year for the World's Indigenous People The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its ...

* Latvian Champion (4): **1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 *

(2): **1987 (VEF), 1992 (Skonto)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dibrivnijs, Aleksandrs 1969 births Living people Latvian men's footballers Latvia men's international footballers Skonto FC players People from Jēkabpils Men's association football forwards Soviet men's footballers