Roberts Skadats (born 1948) is a former Latvian

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and forward 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, 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 ...

- 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 ( Old orthography: ''Sweineek(s)''; feminine: Zvejniece) is a Latvian occupational surname, derived from the Latvian word for "fisherman". Individuals with the surname include: *Kristaps Zvejnieks (born 1992), an Alpine ski racer and ...

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 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 (soccer), 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 ha ...

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 Rezerve ...

, Laimonis Laizāns 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 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 ...

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

1948 births Latvian men's footballers FC Daugava Riga players Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Men's association football forwards Soviet men's footballers {{Latvia-footy-bio-stub