Maksims Toņiševs – the driving force behind Riga’s confident European debut

by Gregors Spricis

Any earned point for a Latvian club in the final stage of European competitions is a big deal. However, on Thursday night, Riga and their supporters felt they could’ve started their UEFA Conference League debut with three points instead of just one.

Adrian Gula’s side delivered a strong performance against last season’s Champions League participants Kairat Almaty, but a missed penalty and failure to convert numerous chances denied his side the opportunity to begin their European campaign with a victory.

“It seemed like Kairat were playing against a Champions League heavyweight like Inter Milan or Liverpool, not a tournament debutant,” wrote Kazakhstan’s press after the final whistle.

Riga were faster and more technical than the guests from the east, but at the centre of it all was the 26-year-old Maksims Toņiševs. The right-back put in a strong performance all across the right-hand side, perfectly adapting to his given role as a right wing-back.

The moment Kairat understood how many problems Toņiševs would create on his side came right after Riga’s equaliser, which was assisted by the Latvian international himself.

Here is Toņiševs positioned high up the field just as Ahmed Ankrah receives the ball.

All attention is towards him, and that’s the moment Toņiševs makes a quick run behind two of his opponents.

Now he is miles ahead of both of them, having all the time in the world to find Salah Oulad in front of the goal, who smashes it in and makes it 1:1 for the night.

However, another thing to highlight from this goal is the way Adrian Gula had assigned Riga’s front players to position when in control of the ball. In the majority of attacks, Mohamed Badamosi, Raki Aouani, Meissa Diop, and Salah Oulad were playing in almost a single parallel line, with Riga creating a formation of a somewhat 4-2-4.

With Kairat playing with a back four, this meant that each one of their four defenders was assigned to one of Riga’s forwards, letting Toņiševs do raids through the right wing all night.

Of course, Urazbakhtin was quick to notice this, meaning Kairat’s left winger Oiva Jukkola was asked to play deeper when his team was out of possession to try to minimize the danger Toņiševs might cause.

Here, the Finnish winger can be seen dropping down as deep as a left back.

However, Jukkola wasn’t that motivated to keep this kind of pressure on Toņiševs all night long, and one of these occasions resulted in Riga earning a penalty, which was eventually missed by Badamosi.

In this situation, Jukkola gives up on catching up as Toņiševs is already making a run up high.

With Jukkola failing to track back, it opens the whole of Kairat’s left side, because the four Riga forwards are being man-marked by their backline of four; therefore, no player is assigned to Toņiševs.

Eventually, Kairat’s left back Luis Mata intervenes, but as a result, it still leaves an odd man out, which in this circumstance is Salah Oulad right in the middle of the box.

Toņiševs perfectly picks out Salah Oulad, and seconds later a penalty is awarded.

Usually, with a right back playing that high, either he is too lazy to track back or lacks the energy to regain his original position straight away. That wasn’t the story with Toņiševs, though, as he did as great a job in defense as in attack.

In total, the Latvian had 4 clearances, 3 interceptions, 3 recoveries, and 3 duels won throughout the whole 90 minutes. Here’s one of the instances.

Riga have lost possession when Toņiševs has been playing high up, meaning Jukkola has been left all by himself on the right side of Riga’s back line.

Jaakko Oksanen plays a quick pass to his fellow countryman, but Toņiševs is already sprinting back.

Even though Jukkola had the handicap, Toņiševs still manages to get back and recover the ball just in time.

This kind of attitude and motivation was seen from the Latvian throughout the whole match. Unfortunately, his hard work wasn’t repaid with a win.

With Andres Salazar picking up a three-match suspension in European competitions due to his red card against KI Klaksvik in the Conference League play-off 2nd leg, Toņiševs place in the starting XI is secure for at least another two matches.

If he continues to perform at the level he has over the past two and a half months, the Jurkovsis–Toņiševs full-back pairing could become a fixture going forward, which would be fantastic news for Latvian football.

What next for Riga in the Conference League?

Thursday, October 22: Pafos FC (away), UECL league phase, 7.45pm EET