Сборная Латвии по футболу: История и современность

Men's association football team representing Latvia
the men's team

The Latvia national football team represents Latvia in men's international football, and is controlled by the Latvian Football Federation, the governing body for football in Latvia. They have never qualified for the FIFA World Cup, but did qualify for the European Championship in 2004 under head coach Aleksandrs Starkovs. Latvia, alongside their Baltic rivals, Lithuania and Estonia, have also participated in the local sub regional Baltic Cup tournament, which takes place every two years. Latvia has won the Baltic Cup championship a record 13 times, more than any other country in the history of the tournament, most recently in 2018. Latvia's current home ground is the Daugava Stadium in Riga, although since the autumn of 2022 most games have been held at Skonto Stadium.

Latvia played their first match in 1922, a game against Estonia, which finished in a 1–1 draw. Latvia have won the Baltic Cup 12 times, and played 99 official games during its pre war period from 1922 to 1940. In 1937, the Latvian team participated in the first qualification tournament for the 1938 World Cup. Latvia were placed in Group 8, alongside Austria and Lithuania. Latvia beat Lithuania 4–2 in Riga, after a Fricis Kaņeps hat trick and an Iļja Vestermans goal. In 1940, Latvia was occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union; the country regained its independence in 1991 and played their first match against Estonia on 16 November of that year in the Baltic Cup, and their first FIFA recognized match against Romania on 8 April 1992 in Bucharest, a match, which Latvia lost 2–0. In September 2003, Latvia surprisingly finished second, ahead of Poland, in their qualifying group for Euro 2004. This meant they qualified for the play offs, where they were drawn against Turkey. Latvia won the first leg 1–0, through top goalscorer, Māris Verpakovskis. The second leg finished in a 2–2 draw, with Latvia winning 3–2 on aggregate, thus qualifying for the tournament. This resulted in Latvia being the first and only Baltic team, as well as being the second former Soviet state in Europe at the time (after Russia) to qualify for a European Championship. Latvia faced Czech Republic in their opening match on 15 June 2004, with Verpakovskis scoring before half time. However, the Czechs would later come back to win the game 2–1. They lost their final match with 3–0 against Netherlands, and were eliminated, finishing fourth, with one point from their draw and two losses. Latvia have since failed to qualify for another major tournament, although they came close to qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. After eight qualifying matches, Latvia were level on points with their next opponent, second placed Greece, but a 5–2 defeat virtually ended all hopes of qualification and Latvia finished third in UEFA Group 2. Recent years have seen a sharp decline with many losses. In the EURO 2020 qualifiers, Latvia lost 9 out of 10 games, including a woeful 0 5 home loss to Slovenia.

Until July 2018, the team crest consisted of the Latvian Football Federation logo, when it was switched to a shield with a football in the colors of the Latvian flag and 'LATVIJA' written above. A similar crest with a head of a howling wolf was also unveiled as a secondary logo for use in souvenirs etc as part of the #11vilki (#11wolves) brand.

All Latvian matches are currently broadcast with full commentary on the Go3 web streaming service, owned by TV3 Group. Since the 1990s, LTV7 (initially LTV2) was the broadcaster of all of the team games, before the All Media Baltics conglomerate took over broadcasting rights in September 2018. Games were broadcast on the group's TV6 channel and the TVPlay and Viaplay streaming platforms. All Media Baltics later became TV3 Group. From the 2022 season until the 2028 season, Latvia's home and away qualifiers, and friendlies both home and away were broadcast live exclusively by Swedish Viaplay Group on their web streaming service. On 20 July 2023, Viaplay announced that it will leave the market of the Baltic states. Upon exiting, all sports licences owned by Viasat including the Baltic broadcasting rights for the Baltic Cup, UEFA Champions League, Premier League, Formula 1 and the NHL were acquired by TV3 Group.

The current home matches take place at the Skonto Stadium. This stadium between 2000 and 2018 was the main base for the national team. In 2017 Daugava Stadium (Riga) reconstruction started with the first stage completed a year later. But due to the bad pitch quality which was not included in the reconstruction phase, national team all the matches played in the Skonto Stadium. There is no clarity, which stadium will be the main stadium in the future after the Daugava Stadium (Riga) pitch replacement.

The following players were called up for the friendly matches against Cyprus and Liechtenstein on 21 and 26 March 2024, respectively. Caps and goals as of 26 March 2024, after the match against Liechtenstein.

Players in bold are still active with Latvia.

RankPlayerGoalsCapsAveragePeriod1. Māris Verpakovskis291041999–20142.Ēriks Pētersons24631929–19393. Vitālijs Astafjevs161671992–20104. Marians Pahars15751996–2007Juris Laizāns151131998–20136. Alberts Šeibelis14541925–19397. Iļja Vestermans13231935–1938Valērijs Šabala13532013–20199. Aleksandrs Cauņa12452007–2015Jānis Ikaunieks12582014–presentMihails Zemļinskis121051992–2005