by Gregors Spricis
Tukums’ Ingars Pūlis has taken Virslīga by storm this season, chasing RFS’ Darko Lemajič for the league’s top scorer award.
At the start of the season, no one would’ve predicted the 24-year-old Latvian forward to be at the top of the scoring charts in the 2025 Virslīga season. However, five months later, Ingars Pūlis is going head-to-head with Darko Lemajič for Virslīga’s golden boot, having scored 14 goals and keeping his side just above the relegation zone.
This makes us wonder – does he deserve recognition from the Latvia national team’s manager Paolo Nicolato? With Roberts Uldriķis still injured and Vladislavs Gutkovskis not being in his best form right now, maybe a chance should be given for the Tukums’ striker.
Career revival at Tukums
Following Valmiera’s dissolution and relegation to the 3rd tier of Latvian football at the start of 2025, Pūlis joined Tukums looking to regain his confidence and goal-scoring form.
The 2024 season at Valmiera proved challenging, with limited opportunities at the top level. He played just two matches in Virslīga, spending most of his time with Valmiera’s reserve team in the Nākotnes Līga.
In an interview with Edmunds Novickis, Pūlis opened up about his time there:
“In training [at Valmiera] I didn’t show my best self. Sometimes being a bit lazy and not believing myself. I wasn’t ready, that’s why I didn’t play so often.”
Pūlis opened his tally for the season on Matchday 4 against Super Nova as he carried his side to a 2:2 draw with a brace. That game was followed by a goal in the win against Grobiņa.
The form dipped a bit in the next three matches against RFS, Riga, and Auda, but considering Tukums were massive underdogs in the games against the Top 4, it wasn’t that surprising.
Pūlis continued after, scoring four in the next five and taking Tukums on a four-match unbeaten run.
His form didn’t go unnoticed by other Virslīga clubs, as in June, FK Liepāja agreed to sign Pūlis after the 2025 season, with him spending the rest of the season at Tukums.
Post-Liepāja form
Signing a contract for Liepāja spurred Pūlis even more, as in the following eight games he scored seven – as many as in his first 15 Virslīga games this season.
During this eight-game run, Tukums only lost twice in the six games in which Pūlis scored, with both losses coming against clear favourites RFS and Liepāja. The other four – 2:1 win vs Grobiņa, 3:0 win vs Metta, 2:1 win over Daugavpils, and a 1:1 draw against Jelgava. In these four separate games, he scored five times.
“Jurģis [Kalns] always said to me – If you’ll believe in yourself, everything will work out.”
Pūlis season in numbers
This season, it seems that Pūlis has finally found success. 14 goals and 1 assist in 23 matches – a goal contribution every 128 minutes, which for a striker playing for a relegation candidate is not bad at all. He’s also scored 14 of Tukums’ 27 goals (52%) this season, which only makes it more impressive.
Pūlis has made a total of 21 shots on target in Virslīga this season, meaning that 66% of his on-target shots go in. He’s also massively exceeded his xG ratio, which currently stands at 10.4, once again proving how much of a prolific striker he is.
Currently, he leads the Virslīga in goals scored by Latvian players as the closest players to him are Jānis Ikaunieks (9), Marko Regža (8), and Bruno Melnis (7). Quite a big margin.
Final verdict
Paolo Nicolato is used to call up not more than 3-4 strikers. In the previous international break, they were Vladislavs Gutkovskis, Marko Regža, and Bruno Melnis. However, Dario Šits was suspended and Roberts Uldriķis was injured, so they weren’t in contention, leaving a big gap for Nicolato to fill.
The next international break is just over a month away, and with Dario Šits being available and Raimonds Krollis also putting in good performances in Czechia, they are both expected to be called up. The same goes with Vladislavs Gutkovskis. Although he isn’t a proper starter and is not in his best form over in Korea, his experience in the national team plays a big part, so he is almost guaranteed to be called up.
As for Bruno Melnis, even though he’s having a decent season over at Liepāja, there are doubts he’ll be called up, as in June, he was most likely the replacement for Uldriķis, Šits, and Krollis.
So for the fourth spot, it’s between Marko Regža and Ingars Pūlis, and both of these players have at one point been in quite similar circumstances.
In his breakout season at Riga in 2023, like Pūlis, Regža hadn’t made a single appearance for the senior national team. After joining from Super Nova, Regža surprised many Virslīga fans that year, shining for Riga under Tomislav Stipič and slowly becoming a starter for the team. Eventually, he was given a call-up by Dainis Kazakevičs in the summer.
If we compare both players’ goal tallies after the first 24 Virslīga gameweeks, Regža had scored 13 goals, Pūlis – 14. A slightly better performance in the same period.
However, Regža might have had an advantage as he had already played for numerous Latvian youth teams – U17, U18, U19, and U21. In U21, his head coach at that time was Dainis Kazakevičs, so the former Latvian head coach already knew Marko and what kind of qualities he could offer.
Caps in youth teams also give you a better chance of eventually being called up for the senior national team. As for Pūlis, he doesn’t have any.
So, with Dario Šits, Raimonds Krollis, Vladislavs Gutkovskis, and Marko Regža all having had much more experience in the national team and also performing pretty decent for their respective clubs, we think it’s very unlikely that, despite Pūlis’ great form, he’ll be called up in September for the games against Serbia and Albania.
This doesn’t rule out that he could be called up in the future. If he continues to score goals this season and takes this form to Liepāja next season, eventually Paolo Nicolato will have to call him up and have a look at him, giving him the chance in the national team colors.
